Kit Harington played Jon Snow on Game of Thrones, which for years was the biggest, most talked-about show in the world. That came with a whole host of pressures, as Harington detailed in a recent interview with GQ. "I was trying to project this image of utter sophistication and coolness about what I was doing but genuinely sort of terrified about everything,” he said.
Harington was also dealing with substance abuse behind the scenes, checking into rehab around the time of the Game of Thrones series finale, which was famously lambasted by fans unhappy with the way things ending. “I went in and everyone loved Thrones; I came out and everyone hated it,” Harington remembered. “I thought, What the fuck is going on?!”
Since then, Harington has gotten sober. He lives with his wife Rose Leslie, whom he met on the set of Game of Thrones (she played Jon Snow's wildling love interest Ygritte) and their children. “I was so lucky I got sober before having kids,” he said, recalling a time when it felt “physically and emotionally impossible for me not to drink again.”
Today, Harington is proud of having gotten sober, something else that once felt like an impossibility to him. “Because before getting sober, I would stare in the mirror and call myself a cunt. I'd hate myself. I would literally despise myself and not be proud of anything I'd done. I couldn't be proud," he said. "So the fact that I am proud of getting sober is in and of itself a mark of being an entirely different person. And now, every set I step onto, whatever work I do, I'm proud of, because I know I put everything into it. Whereas before I had this huge monkey on my back that was just, like, weighing me down. So yeah, the whole nature of being proud of myself is a relatively new prospect for me.”
It sounds like Harington went through some seriously dark years, so I'm happy he's come out the other end happy and productive. “Look, I can't tell what the future brings,” he said. “I might have one massive, messy, chaotic relapse. And I hope that doesn't happen. But I think I protect myself by talking about it.” He also thinks talking about it could help other people who see someone like him “who had the same problem, and who are living a really, really genuinely happy, content life, and can't imagine going back to what I going back to.”
At the moment, you can see Harington as billionaire tech CEO Henry Muck on Industry, a drama about the world of high finance. There's also a healthy dose of Euphoria-style sexcapades in there. Harington joined the show for its third season, and may just make the difference between whether Industry is renewed or now. New episodes drop Sundays on HBO. He was also working on a Game of Thrones sequel show starring Jon Snow, although that idea didn't come to fruition. But with Harington happy and healthy and in a good headspace, who's to say it couldn't be revived sometime down the line?
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