Kit Harington took a break from filming season 8 to chat about his series Gunpowder, and how it feels to be approaching the end of his tenure on Game of Thrones (but, you know, for real this time).
In his interview with Deadline, Harington reports that production on season 8 is going swimmingly. “These days are long and a grind but we’ve got the first section out of the way, and all is well. All is good,” he says. But he admits that there’s a sense of pressure on set that hasn’t been present before.
“Whereas before, every year there’s always been a bit of pressure, this season is one where we could easily let people down,” he says. “Obviously, we don’t want to do that so we’re very much stepping up everyone’s game which is very apparent, at least to me … I love it, you know. It’s also I think that thing of just trying to get everything you can out of it while we’re still doing it. Really kind of explore every inch of it.”
Perhaps it’s the residual effects of spending an entire year assuring everyone that Jon Snow wasn’t coming back after season 5, but Harington struggles to articulate how it feels to approach the end of Game of Thrones.
“The ‘how are you’ feeling thing is a strange one because I’m not sure that you’re feeling one particular thing at any one time when you’re present in it.”
He explains that, when one in is the thick of filming, it’s difficult to get a sense of the bigger picture, because everyone’s concentrated on getting things right in the moment.
“So I look back at the ‘Battle of the Bastards’ episode now and I understand what it meant and what it was to do it, but at the time you’re just getting on with the job … I will say I think I’m understandably more affected by it than I thought I would be,” he says.
“You know I wasn’t quite cynical about things, I’m quite straightforward and English. But, really, eight years of your life is a long time to connect with anything. I didn’t know at the beginning if this would be a show that no one would watch or if it would be a show that a lot of people would watch. And I’ve never been in a situation, a show, that’s lasted this long. In my life it’s pretty significant thing that’s happened to me, and coming to the end of it is understandably quite emotional.”
The three part series, Gunpowder (which aired its finale last night), was Harington’s producing debut. Looking forward, Harington says he’d like to produce again and perhaps give directing a try.
Im feeling that Jon is gonna die protecting Danny and their son from the NK[killing him also in the process].That will be his heroic ending ..Thats why Kit is so emotional..His character has to die for what he loves the most..It will be also his duty to his new family.
Gee, I wonder if the ending will be bittersweet or not?
Oh…and, Hoderp!
Jon Snuh. I hope he gets a good, satisfying ending. Kit took a while to grow on me at first, honestly, but now I couldn’t see anyone else as Jon.
Not necessarily on topic, but… I’m still hoping that part of the proof and believing that Jon is part Targaryen comes with him not being burned by fire (“Fire cannot kill a dragon” coming from maturation some time after his S1 burnt hand).
My new guess for the ending is that both AeJon and (pregnant) Daenerys transform into dragons themselves and fly away. Jon, a snow white dragon and Daenerys, fire red. No, not really, but I think I’d accept that just fine. 😛
I was shocked to see it mention his mom is dead- but if you go back to the original article now, they have taken that line out of it. So they must have screwed that up. Maybe edit that part in your post too?
Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
^ Just thought I’d save us all a little time, myself in composing the message and you in comprehending it, and skip straight to the meaning of it.
Danielle Stark,
Omg, same here. He always spoke about her with such affection in previous interviews that I assumed she was still alive. Ughhh, how tragic.
Dark Sister,
She’s alive and well!
Kit’s mom did not pass away.
Winter is Here –
Happy Holidays Watchers on the Wall
Danielle Stark,
Pigeon,
Thank the old gods and the new!! 🙌🙌
LatrineDiggerBrian,
I get it, Mr. Sunshine. 😁
And Pigeon won the box set against ~ 1 in 1,000 odds. 😄
That’s a win-win from my vantage point.
Interview 12,567 on S8 being emotional/sad/happy/intense/biggest yet/amazing/bittersweet
Apollo,
And we still have more than a year,
“The three part series, Gunpowder (which aired its finale last night), was Harington’s producing debut. Looking forward, Harington says he’d like to produce again and perhaps give directing a try.”
Given how this one went, I’d watch whatever Kit has a hand in. I watched the first episodes of Gunpowder and liked it so much that I waited for the next two episodes in happy anticipation, then went on internet to research the incidents depicted. His character was intense, driven, angry and determined. Kit got that done perfectly, as did the actors portraying other parts. I recommend watching it.
Yeah, realizing that had me down for a while, but this site is doing a great job of keeping everyone posted of events and interviews and such, so I guess I’ll get through.
That would be pretty arbitrary, wouldn’t it? It would be better for the show to stick to the story and thus stick to using character evolution rather than plot items! Assuming that they stick to story, Jon will accept it for the same reason so many people were expecting it for nearly 20 years: it provides a nice simple explanation for what Ned Stark did. And “What would Ned Stark do?” is going to be a critical part of the final equation for Jon.
Thronetender,
Your concern is unnecessary: Gunpowder was almost certainly written before Season 7, never mind before Kit knew what would happen in Season 8. Foreshadowing exists only is stories: in reality, we never have more than coincidences!
This is going to be so GRRM…torture! Having flashbacks of the True Blood cast in mourning for over a year. Every commercial on HBO was vampires cryin’.
Ten Bears,
😉
Thronetender,
I watched them and liked the first two more than the third.
but because it just didn’t feel as substantial. That said, I was wrapping presents through a lot of it so I should do a 2nd viewing before I rate it. I thought Kit did great and also the actor who played Wade was excellent. Always like Liv too.
thats what i describe in my comment..Jon dies for to protect Danny and their kid and save the world..fighting with NK 1 by 1 ..killing him but also dies in process [Gladiator style ending]………Kit seems to have the same thinking with me” the only thing that bothered me about Gunpowder was seeing Robert Catesby’s, Kit’s character’s, fate. About halfway through episode 3 I blurted out, “Oh shit, Jon Snow is gonna die for sure.” I got the dread feeling that this was a set-up for what was going to happen to Jon/Aegon: to die trying to protect something that he so strongly believed in. I hope I’m wrong. I consider myself a realistic person, but still find myself wanting the ending to this thing more sweet than bitter”……..I can read his mind easily.
Wimsey:
You mean Jon will accept as proof the entry Sam found in the Septon’s private diary + Bran’s confirming vignettes viewed via VoyeurVision™?
Is it me or have we had a glut of these similar articles in the past few days.
Anyway don’t HBO do a 2018 teaser around this time, any chance that we may get some S8 footage in that given they have completed three months of filming?
Jon Snowed,
They had that clip. Without GoT.
I’m okay with Jon dying to protect Dany and their child just so long as it doesn’t make Jon look dumb as in there could have been another obvious way or Jon creating the situation himself unnecessarily I’m so tired of that.
Jon not looking dumb? Come on now, that would be out of character
Yes, Jon will accept what those things mean. After all, it is very parsimonious: and that is the prime reason why so many fans thought that it was true.
But here is the other thing to keep in mind. Some fans have been predicting “fantastic” plot elements like this for years. And they never happen: the resolutions are always character driven. At this point, why would there be arbitrary plot-driven resolutions instead?
I can’t wait for certain horns to be blown, hidden eggs to be found, an ad hoc Blackfyre rebellion and a cold, stony, motherly resurrection! To hell with robust character arcs, the tale will end with Howland Reed telling us how it really went down! 🙂 😉 (wink, wink…say no more!)
But, again: how could something in Gunpowder be a setup for something in Game of Thrones? For one thing, the people who wrote it had (and have) no more idea of exactly how Jon’s character winds up in Thrones than we do. The only person involved who learned early is Harrington: and he didn’t know when he was playing Robert Catesby what (exactly) was going to happen to Jon Snow: after all, they filmed Gunpowder several months before Series 7 even debuted, and long before Harrington got the scripts for Series 8.
But the other really major thing is: Robert Catesby’s fate in the show is based on actual history. OK, sure, maybe they embellished a little bit: but the Gundpowder plot happened without anyone saying: “hey, let’s do what Jon Snow would do!” (Insert messiah jokes here. 😉 )
So, I guess that I just do not understand why you think that it is remotely possible that the showrunners were rewriting a historical docudrama to give away Jon Snow’s fate!
Here again, look to Robert’s Rebellion to give us an idea of what the “bittersweet” will be like. We didn’t get that type of ending for any of the principles there. Ned Stark, not Robert Catesby, is the one foreshadowing Jon’s fate.
Hodors Bastard,
HB! You will love this: climate scientists explaining Westeros seasons!
I was hoping to see you on here just to provide you with that paper! Have a wonderful Saturnalia!
Hah! Thx. Printed and pinned to my virtual office wall. I think you linked it yesterday. Been trying to avoid major spoilers while lurking through the keen analysis. I’m happy to celebrate Saturnalia because I missed Kronia. Enjoy the annual western demarcation of Earth’s orbit!
Wimsey,
I was hoping to see you on here just to provide you with that paper!Have a wonderful Saturnalia!
How very wimseycal of you. Happy Saturnalia, Yule, and Christmas to you and all the Merry Watchers on the Wall. And may your new year be bright and free of terrors.
Hodors Bastard,
Yeah, I put up a link out of the blue, but one never knows who sees these individual threads. I figured that you would get a huge kick out of it.
Now, for my favorite Saturnalia treat: rock candy shaped like babies….
I think Rhaegars fate will foreshadow Jon…dies heroically in the battlefield .not Neds fate..Danny also will foreshadowed by Lyannas fate..dies in childbirth.
Wimsey,
wow that was amazing – someone had lots of spare time on their hands, and so glad they did!
heh, it probably did not take anywhere near as much work as you would think. Yes, the programs that they used would have taken a lot of time: but they already had those for doing real climate science. (Well, unless you are a Trumpkin: then you think that it’s fake science, of course!) Looking up what points to compare between Martin’s world and ours would have been some work: but, then, how many fans have done the same? (And there are a lot of GoT fans in academia these days.)
The basic hypothesis, i.e., a wobbling axis, is based on existing theory: it is generally accepted that the Earth’s axial tilt wobbles a bit over time. That has had some effect on seasonality, although things like continental alignments and how those affect ocean currents also are influences. The big difference is that Westeros’ planet has a wobble that is much less precise than Earth’s. I seem to recall that it has been posited that planets in binary or trinary star systems might undergo much less precise wobbles than we do: so some “dark star” with a highly elliptical orbit around the main star of a system (or, really, around the center of gravity for the two stars) might conceivably do something like this.
So, as is the case with so much science, it’s really the intersection of existing analyses and ideas combined in a different ways. (I do the same thing with baseball statistics, myself!)
Wimsey,
Of course there should not be arbitrary resolutions. I figure Sam’s word + historical records should be enough for Jon. Bran’s confirming visions should eliminate any doubts, since their consistent reliability will surely gave to be acknowledged, even if he still has trouble organizing the clutter downloaded into his beain.
(I hope the undead make it to Oldtown, just to see the looks on the faces of the Citadel maesters who dismissed Bran’s warnings with jokes about a crippled boy talking to a magic bird.)
Ten Bears,
“I hope the undead make it to Oldtown, just to see the looks on the faces of the Citadel maesters who dismissed Bran’s warnings with jokes about a crippled boy talking to a magic bird.”
Me too! With all my heart! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Did anyone listen to the commentary for “The Dragon & The Wolf”? Lena Heady asks for a sword, a horse and bobble-hat in season 8. Dan Weiss says, “It’s a no for the bobble-hat”.
Because no one thinks of an ending where Dany and Jon go away from Westeros (like Bilbo and Frodo in the LOTR ending).
Neither of the two characters will sit on the Thron, because the it is now destroyed.
Moments with tears:
Sad goodbye between Jaime and Brienne (Jaime dies)
Long goodbye between Jon and Arya before Jon left for Essos
Jon defeats the of the Night King, but is wounded, Melissandre saves him for the last time. He prefers to leave from Westeros. He renounces to the throne. Leave everything to Ser Davos. Dany and Jon leave for Essos.
This would be a good ending.
Ser Hogwyn,
I was interested in what happened on the day they filmed Jon’s speech about ‘if enough people tell enough lies etc etc ‘ they said they couldn’t talk about it 🤔
OK, good! It read like you were assuming that Jon would demand to see his own figurative stigmata! After all, it seems like every year we get some fans hoping that this will be the time where the show starts resorting to classic epic fantasy tropes.
Carole H,
Trump got elected.
Ser Hogwyn,
Ahh, thanks for that.
Ser Hogwyn,
Well what does that have to do with the British Kit Harington and his speech as Jon Snow at the dragonpit I wonder. And unless they personally know the guy it just doesn’t sit right when people wanted to criticize a man before he even took the seat and gets to show us what he’s made of. I’m not a D or an R jst to get that out the way..ok carry on peeps lol.