Kit Harington names his favorite Game of Thrones scenes, talks season 8

This Sunday, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) will return to Winterfell alongside Daenerys Targaryen and her army in the Game of Thrones season 8 premiere. Harington spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the final episodes. “Every episode is big,” he said. “It’s just more exhausting than it’s ever been.”

"It’s relentless. What would have been a one-day shoot two years ago is now a five-day shoot. We’ve had walk-and-talks that would have been a half day end up being 3 or 4 days. That’s the scale of it. They really want to get it right. They want to shoot [every scene] every single way so they have options [during editing]."

For season 8, the cast and crew endured a grueling 11-week shoot that included 55 consecutive nights of traipsing through the freezing rain and mud in Northern Ireland for a massive battle the likes of which TV fans have never seen before. Still, Harington is mindful of not being able to please everyone. “You have to do a conclusion in six episodes,” he said. “Not every person is going to be happy with the conclusion of something so big. The whole nature of the speed of the [story] has to be different from earlier seasons. I think if you watch it all back to back years later [fans will] think it went so quick.”

And what are Harington’s favorite scenes he’s done so far? “I’m very proud of the Battle of the Bastards, the one [long continuous take of Jon Snow fighting] through the horses.” That checks out:

“And I’ll always be proud of seasons 2 and 3 with [his wife Rose Leslie as Ygritte],” Harington continued. “While I think there were storylines people enjoyed more, just when Rose and I are walking through the wilderness — those are some of the favorite shots I’ve done.” Awww.

Now that Game of Thrones is over, Harington would like to get into producing, but he’ll always be thankful for what the show has done for him. “This has given me freedom. I have a house that I own. I keep nicking beers from [showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss’] fridge and I left them a note saying, ‘I owe you two beers and one career’ — and that’s how I feel. They gave so many options to go and do things.”

That’s what happens when you don’t write your name on your food and beverages in the work refrigerator; Kit Harington comes along and steals your stuff.

Another person for whom Game of Thrones has been a boon is composer Ramin Djawadi, who was working before the show but who’s profile it has raised considerably. Speaking to Inverse at the Game of Thrones season 8 premiere event in New York City, Djawadi said that composing music for season 8 was a bit different:

"It’s obviously super exciting but writing this final season was definitely very emotional for me. I went through all the ups and downs all by myself. Obviously it’s so under wraps that even my direct team can’t have access to my studio. So it was just me and nobody else, all the doors were locked. It was quite emotional."

Just one man, trapped in a room with the final six Game of Thrones episodes, which Djawadi said he watched “hundreds and hundreds of times” before and during composition. It’s a miracle he made it out with his sanity.

Naturally, Djawadi couldn’t say much about his work for the final season, but did what he could. “I can say there are new themes, definitely, and there are plenty of the existing themes as well, with new iterations.” Sign us up.

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