Kit Harington knows the dark side of fame all too well. Image source: HBO
If you haven’t watched HBO’s cult series Game of Thrones yet, we would encourage you to read about Henry Cavill’s rigorous training schedule for his next big fantasy role.
If you’re a GoT virtuoso or don’t care about spoilers, let’s get down to business: Kit Harington, the actor who plays Jon Snow, has it in a new edition of the podcast The Hidden 20% talked about the hard time his character’s fame brought him.
My life depended on it
In the podcast linked above, Harington has clear words about his time in the spotlight. To be more precise, he is mainly talking about seasons 5 and 6. During this time, Jon Snow died as commander of the Night’s Watch – only to rise from the dead a season later.
Suddenly Kit Harington was an even bigger star and for a while a pivotal point rather than just one of many characters in the series. This put enormous strain on the actor. According to him, his life depended on properly processing fame:
My darkest period was when the show seemed to revolve so much around Jon dying and coming back. I didn’t like that the focus of the whole series was on Jon. When you become the cliffhanger of a television series, and a television series is probably at the height of its power, the focus on you is pretty damn frightening.
I realized that my life depends on it. Luckily I was in the right place at the right time. I’ve managed to make a new life for myself… That’s a dangerous rabbit hole to fall down because you find all the bad things people say as well as the nice ones.
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Incriminating contradiction to the hero figure
The actor once fought against alcohol addiction and depression and his global fame through Game of Thrones only made the situation worse. Because many people saw him as the fictional shining hero Jon Snow and not the real person Kit Harington.
In a conversation with The Times The actor recently described how he was feeling at the height of his mental problems. At that time
that was in 2019, when he appeared in the play True West after the end of GoT and many fans continued to see him as just Jon Snow:
People treated me like the character who was a hero and good. But in my life I haven’t felt like that at all. And that, I think, led to a kind of psychological scarring. I drank a lot. I was addicted, with everything that goes with it, hidden things and all sorts of things. And that was the exact opposite of the character I played, who couldn’t lie.
The disappointment shows on her face [der Fans]as soon as you start talking. The character and I got very confused at this point. I didn’t know who I really was. I drank constantly while playing an alcoholic. That was the worst. During the play I sort of broke down and told the people around me what was going on and finally took action.
Today Kit Harington says he is sober. Despite these tough times, he doesn’t seem to be avoiding Game of Thrones either, as the actor is currently working with George RR Martin on a spin-off series to Jon Snow, which will be a sequel that will shed light on the character’s fate after GoT. However, HBO has not yet given the project the green light.
