It turns out Kit Harington may not have had to try that hard to play the dour Jon Snow during his eight seasons on Game of Thrones. Not long ago, he revealed that the scrutiny that came with the role drove him to seek counseling. Now, he talks further about coming to terms with his new-found fame with Emmy Magazine:
I was enjoying it, but I was concerned, and I was worried, anxious. On a personal level as it went on, I stopped letting it have such an impact on me. Yes, I was in this big TV show and I was playing this character… but that’s not my life.
Things got really bad after Jon Snow was murdered by the Night’s Watch in the season 5 finale, and Kit Harington couldn’t walk three feet without someone asking him if he was really gone. “It was probably one of the darkest periods I have been through in my life,” Harington said. “I think it must have had something to do with being a walking cliffhanger: I didn’t enjoy it. You want to be a lead, and then you get all the spotlight of the biggest show in the world onto you for a few months. It’s very disorientating, and weird, and unpleasant in many ways. That’s kind of where I went, ‘I need to separate me from the show a bit.’”
Hopefully those days are behind him. We’ll see everything Jon Snow has left to give in the show’s hotly anticipated eighth season. Harington, like other cast members, prepares us for the unexpected. “I think it will be strong,” he said. “But you don’t want to mess it up on the very last outing.”
I haven’t watched a single series that has a following like Thrones does where everyone is satisfied with the ending. I don’t think that it’ll be any different with this. I think it will divide opinion.
If Ghost appears, I’ll definitely be on the “I loved it” side of the divide. I’m easy to please, HBO.
With Thrones in the rearview mirror, Harington has a few ideas for what’s next:
I have played possibly the unfunniest character ever to have graced television. I love comedy. But Jon Snow is not a joke person. It’s quite nice to now subvert what people see you as, and show that you can be funny. In some ways comedy works even better if you’re the overly serious guy in a ridiculous comedy; then it can be even funnier.
I don’t know about you, but Harington was hilarious in HBO’s 7 Days in Hell, and I’d love to see more.
Game of Thrones season 8 debuts April 14.
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h/t People
