Kit Harington has a special memory of his audition for the role of Jon Snow in “Game of Thrones”, which occurred the day after a violent clash in a restaurant.
It may ultimately be a method like any other, especially if you are in the running to play a character living in a fantastic and violent world such as that of Game of Thrones. According to Kit Harington, the black eye he had, despite himself, the day of his audition for the future hit HBO series is what allowed him to get the role of Jon Snow – a role that he was also supposed to resume in his own spin-off which has unfortunately just been canceled…
As the actor recounted in a 2016 video interview with W Magazine, the day before his audition, he went to a McDonald’s when a man began insulting the young woman he was dating at the era. What followed was a physical altercation with the man in question… which he lost! The result: a black eye – and ultimately perhaps the Holy Grail that would have allowed him to land the role that changed his life.
“I had a black eye. I had fought the night before. I had a fight with this guy at McDonald’s. I went to McDonald’s with this girl I was dating at the time, it was late at night and there were no seats. They asked this guy and girl he was with if we could sit at the same table as them and they said yes.”
However, once seated, things apparently went wrong: “We sat down and pretty soon he started being really rude to the girl I was with, calling her names, and we were like, ‘We’re just going to finish our food, we don’t want any trouble. ‘ And then he called her a naughty pig or something worse and I stood up and said, ‘No, you can’t call her that, get up.’ So I called him out to fight, which I had never done before and of course we had been sitting there the whole time, he got up and just kept going…”, he continued, raising his head higher and higher, indicating that the man in question was much taller than him.
“I realized, at that moment, that I had to throw the first punch, otherwise I would have looked like a wimp and gotten beaten up. So I went to the Jon Snow audition with a black eye and I think the man who punched me in the face may have helped me get the part. So if you look [cette vidéo]THANKS !”
A cockade for a golden role: ultimately, all’s well that ends well for Kit Harington who of course obtained the role, now iconic, of Jon Snow during the 8 seasons of a series which revolutionized the world of the small screen forever.
And if we draw two lessons from this story, it is first of all that Kit Harington is chivalrous (Jon Snow would be proud of him) and that a black eye for an audition is not such a bad idea!
Listen to him tell his story (and more) in the original video below:
The time he hit Iwan Rheon
Let’s stay on the same theme and talk about another time when Kit Harington hit an individual. As he himself admitted to Mashable, also in 2016, he accidentally hit his fellow actor Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton) in the face not once, but twice, during the filming of the famous Battle of the Bastards from season 6 of Game Of Thrones – at the moment when Jon Snow attacks Bolton directly in front of Sansa’s (Sophie Turner) eyes.
“I actually hit Iwan in the face twice, by accident, which he took very well“, did he declare. “He was really nice about it. I had to buy him a pint after that one.”
It seems like Iwan Rheon for his part had a much more reasonable reaction than his character would have had: “It was good”he joked. “My jaw hurt a little the next day, but, you know, that’s understandable.” The actor later clarified, during an interview on the set of Conan O’Brien’s show, that he had even encouraged his colleague not to hold back.
HBO
Going so far as to flay his enemy alive on screen, Kit Harington explained, however, that Jon Snow may have gone too far at that point.
“It’s a horrible moment when you see your hero go a little too far. The public must say: ‘Yes! Yes ! Ramsay gets what he deserves! He always gets what he deserves, it’s… Okay, stop. Can you stop now?’”
Eventually, Kit Harington and Jon Snow have a few things in common and defending the honor of their loved ones is one of them. We know, Ramsay deserved it, a hundred times multiplied by a thousand. And Jon was not only defending Sansa’s honor in that moment but also avenging the death of her little brother Rickon (Art Parkinson) – as well as bringing justice to all those who were affected by the character’s despicable actions. And then, this fight, he won and the public around the world applauded him.
Game of Thrones can be rewatched in its entirety on Prime Video via the Warner Pass.