For Kit Harington, Game of Thrones is over and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is on the horizon. Speaking this weekend at the ACE Comic Con in Chicago, he talked all about what it was like to play Jon Snow, his on-set adventures with his onscreen siblings, and what it’s going to be like entering a new phase of his career.
“One of the struggles about playing Jon was that I was always playing someone who was a better person than me,” Harington mused. “He’s good to his core. He’s loyal, he’s brave, he’s honest, he’s truthful to his very core. Playing alongside a character like that for 10 years of your life is somewhat intimidating…I can only hope that some of him does live on in me, or that I learned something from him. It’s only now I’m realizing that I loved him dearly as a person, and I really enjoyed playing him.”
And we enjoyed watching. Three cheers for Kit!
That said, not every day on the Game of Thrones set was about love and enjoyment. Harington still sounds playfully bitter that he didn’t get to take home Longclaw. “I didn’t get the sword, so now I’m having to call the armorer, and I’m getting my own exact replica made,” he said.
“I’m gonna bill HBO,” he admitted after being prompted by the moderator. “I’m gonna sue them.” I’m looking forward to seeing that case make its way through the courts.
Of course, Harington didn’t leave HBO empty-handed. “The one thing I managed to grab were gloves and the vambraces,” he said. He also has the life-sized statue of Jon Snow from one of the season 8 promos.
It’s in his garden shed. “They asked me, Maisie and Sophie if we wanted them and I was the only one who said yes.”
Speaking of Turner, the moderator brought up the times the actress has teased Harington about taking an inordinate amount of time styling his beautiful head of hair. “Sophie Turner needs to just shush every now and then,” Harington laughed.
"I love that girl to my very bones…The thing about Sophie, Maisie [Williams], Issac [Hempstead Wright], and me is that we were together for so long. Richard [Madden] was definitely in that too. We became like actual siblings, we would literally fight each other. We got a very sibling relationship as kids."
Coincidentally enough, Harington next gig — as Dane Whitman, aka the superhero Black Knight in The Eternals — will repair him with Madden, making for a Thrones reunion. “It was emotional saying goodbye to him in Thrones all those years ago, because even three years in, when he left the show, something really did shift and the show became something else,” Harington remembered. “There was a marker where losing Richard really changed the show. And some of my fondest memories of Game of Thrones are with Richard Madden. He’s a wonderful man and he’s still one of my very, very good friends.”
Image: HBO/Game of Thrones
Glad to hear that they’re still close. “I saw him the other day,” Harington began before likely realizing he was about to say something about his role in the MCU, “and he’s very good, so yeah.” So close!
Naturally, Harington is psyched to start the MCU phase of his life, shifting from one mega-franchise to another. “Really what I’m excited about is getting involved in a new world, in a new universe,” he said. “Coming here, I can see just how passionate people are about this world…I’m just thrilled, it’s a whole new chapter and a whole new character to start thinking about, and one that, without saying too much, on the surface can look a little bit like Jon Snow…but actually, I think there’s a lot to be done that’s different.”
The Eternals hits theaters on November 6 of next year! Then we’ll see just how far from the Jon Snow tree the Black Knight falls.
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One more bit of Game of Thrones remembrance before we go: Harington was asked to name his favorite scene he filmed with Emilia Clarke, and picked their initial meeting in “The Queen’s Justice”:
"What was really exciting was that very first scene where Jon walks into the Dragonstone throne room and sees her for the first time. And this isn’t a world where you have Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. He’s never seen this woman before, but he’s heard about her: the Dragon Queen. For us — me and Emilia — it was really exciting, because we had been friends for six years, and seen each other’s work, but never got to meet. So there was a lot of hype that day on set. And I thought it was a beautiful scene…They’re testing the water with each other. Instantly you can see there’s some attraction, but they’ve got their own agenda."
Speaking of social media, Harington has no plans to open an Instagram account, if you’re wondering. The world weeps.
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