Five years after the series finale of “Game of Thrones,” Kit Harington looks back on his time on the hit series – and thinks that the eighth season could have gone a little better.
The actor is currently starring in the third season of HBO drama Industry, which follows a group of young investment bankers in London. The series is one of his more significant television projects after Thrones, along with a four-part stint on Apple TV+’s Extrapolations.
In a GQ profile of his role on “Industry,” which returned on Sunday, Harington also looked back on his time on “Game of Thrones,” including reactions to the series finale, which some fans found disappointing.
“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion,” Harington told GQ. “I think there were mistakes made story-wise, maybe towards the end. I think there were some interesting choices that didn’t quite work.”
Harington played the role of Jon Snow in all eight seasons of Game of Thrones. Today, the actor can hardly stand the Targaryen prequel series House of the Dragon – but he too was possibly set to reprise the role of Jon Snow in a spin-off titled Snow. However, in April 2024, Harington confirmed to Screen Rant that the series was no longer in the works.
Harington told GQ that HBO contacted him about the prospect of a spin-off. At first he said no – but changed his mind when he considered the possibility of telling a new story. Harington said that after several years of development, however, the team put the series on hold.
“I ended up backing down and saying, ‘I think if we keep pushing this and developing it, we might end up with something that’s not good. And that’s the last thing we all want,'” he told GQ.
But when the show’s final season came around, Harington told the magazine that he and the others were simply exhausted. By that point, the series had already been on the air for nearly a decade.
“I think if there was a flaw in the ending of ‘Thrones,’ it was that we were all so damn tired that we couldn’t have carried on any longer. And so I understand that some people thought it was rushed, and I might agree with them,” Harington told GQ.
“But I’m not sure there was an alternative,” he continued. “I look at pictures of myself in that last season and I look exhausted. I look exhausted. I didn’t have another season in me.”
