Kit Harington is ready to move on from Game of Thrones

As filming gets underway (or not) on the final season of Game of Thrones, some of its stars contemplate the future. One of them is Kit Harington, who admitted to The Express that he’ll be happy for a change of scenery once the show is over. “I’m personally done now with Medieval in the 1600s,” he said, referring both to Jon Snow and his role as Robert Catesby in the BBC’s Gunpowder, about a failed plot to assassinate the king of England in 1605. Harington is ready for “[s]omething with guns. I want to move myself more modern, slowly!”

“I think [the role of Robert Catesby] fit quite well with me not being able to cut my hair!” Harington quipped. Does that mean the lustrous Jon Snow locks are coming off when season 8 is over? For shame.

Hair aside, Harington seems to have to found peace with the end of Game of Thrones, bittersweet as it is. “Game of Thrones is coming to a very quick end, which I’m feeling emotional about,” he told Digital Spy.

"Thrones is coming to the end at the right time for me, and everyone involved in it. I was exchanging emails with David [Benioff] Dan [Weiss] last night and we were all getting very soppy and emotional with each other."

When season 8 wraps, Harington and many other cast members will have spent eight years of their lives making the show. Harington is looking forward to the next step:

"It will be liberating, just the thought of having a whole year free – you shoot for six months, but half of the projects you might want to do will have started shooting before that six months is over. There’s a lot of things you can’t do. I’m looking forward to finishing, and eight years is the right amount of time. I wouldn’t want it to go on any longer than it has. I have other ideas I’d like to look at producing."

Harington learned “what the job involves” by working with producers on Thrones, and got to put some of that knowledge to use behind the scenes of Gunpowder. “I found the producing side of Gunpowder fascinating, I would like to do more of it,” he said. “I’ve found it’s opened up a different side of my creative brain, which I’ve really enjoyed.”

Gunpowder, which costars fellow Thrones alum Mark Gattis (Tycho Nestoris), debuts this Saturday, October 21 at 9:10 BST on BBC One.

Next: HBO CEO: Game of Thrones prequel scripts are an “embarrassment of riches”

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