Kit Harington sure sounds glad to be done with Game Of Thrones

Health is something discussion around that ending doesn’t tend to consider. Back in 2019, Harington checked into rehab just as the episode aired, citing “personal issues” at the time. (“I went in and everyone loved Thrones; I came out and everyone hated it,” Harington shared with GQ. “I thought, ‘What the fuck is going on?!’”) He later opened up about experiencing some “mental health difficulties” due to the “nature of the show.” While we all would have loved for things to have gone differently in the broad sense, performers need to take care of themselves first.

It sounds like that hard-won self-protective motivation was also a factor in Snow’s cancellation. “What I can tell you is it was HBO that came to me and said, ‘Would you consider this?’ My first reaction was no,” Harington shared of the proposed prequel. “And then I thought there could be an interesting and important story about the soldier after the war. I felt that there might be something left to say and a story left to tell in a pretty limited way.”

The rest is history. “We spent a couple of years back and forth developing it. And it just didn’t… nothing got us excited enough,” he continued. “In the end, I kind of backed out and said, ‘I think if we push this any further and keep developing it we could end up with something that’s not good. And that’s the last thing we all want.’”

Now, Harington is acting in a role he made the initial call for. He stars in Industry’s buzzy third season as Sir Henry Muck, the CEO of a green-tech energy company. To really fit into this new Sunday show, however, Harington knows he needed to leave his last one behind for good. “[Game Of Thrones] will always be just such a significant factor of my life. It might very well be the biggest, most important piece of work I do. I met my wife on it. I have kids from it. Have some lifelong friends from it. I’m recognized in the street because of it,” the actor said. “[But] it was also working against what I’m trying to do, which is separate myself from [the show]. By still being with it, it [would be] very hard to ask people to see you as something else. And it’s kind of essential to do my job, for people to come and see me and not see Jon Snow.”