Kit Harington
Kit Harington
Christopher Catesby "Kit" Harington is an English actor. He rose to prominence playing the role of Jon Snow in the award-winning HBO television series Game of Thrones, which garnered him a nomination for the 2016 Primetime Emmy Award. Harington also played lead roles in the films Pompeii, Testament of Youth, and Spooks: The Greater Good, as well as supporting roles in the films Silent Hill: Revelation and Seventh Son. In 2014, Harington had a voice role in How to Train...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth26 December 1986
CityLondon, England
'How to Train Your Dragon,' the first one, was a film I'd seen prior to being approached for the sequel. I don't often watch family animated movies, but it's one that I loved and thought was really well done: beautifully crafted storytelling.
I trained in theater. And I started in theater with my first two jobs doing stage plays.
There's a huge difference between stage fighting and real sword fighting.
Jeff Bridges is one of those icons that I put on a very high pedestal, so just to get to chill with him off-camera on cold, rainy days was surreal.
My parents brought us up in a very clever way, which was that they saw what we were interested in naturally, and then they encouraged whatever that may be. When I started sharing a keen interest in drama and the theater, instead of steering me away from it, they encouraged me to see plays and think about drama school.
I find you can lose yourself in an acting sense in a fight far more easily than you can in a dialogue scene, and I love that about it. We try as actors all the time: we strive just to completely sort of lose ourselves in the moment, and we never quite get there, but in a fight, you can do it in seconds; that is what I love about it.
I actually don't do much to my hair. It gets fussed over a lot on projects because there's a lot of it, and it's boy's hair, but as far as me, I tend to let it do what it wants.
I love action. I love doing fight scenes; I always have. I love it.
Any kind of horror video game where I'm the first-person player and I'm... I suddenly stop caring about the video game dude, and I'm like, I really don't want him to die,' and then the minute he dies, it upsets me. I can't play those games.
I studied history when I was at school, at A-level, actually. I wouldn't profess to being very knowledgeable though, no.
With 'Downton Abbey,' you're always stuck in one stately home.
You know obviously a big TV or film break would be lovely, but I find that I’m essentially a theatre trained actor and that’s what I love doing. I love fringe theatres in London, I love theatres like the Royal Court, Soho and the National obviously and if I could work in any of those and be a jobbing actor for a while then I’m very lucky.
I went to school, and I remember that you had to do these tests to find out what set you're in - how clever you are. I put down "Kit Harington," and they looked at me like I was completely stupid, and they said, "No, you're Christopher Harington, I'm afraid." It was only then I learnt my actual name. That was kind of a bizarre existential crisis for an 11-year-old to have, but in the end I always stuck with Kit, because I felt that's who I was. I'm not really a "Chris."
I love acting and I know that's a cliché, but I didn't really, I was very naïve when it came to the whole being recognized thing.