Kit Harington said in a new interview with British GQ that continuing on “Game of Thrones” after eight seasons would not have been possible as the cast was “all so fucking tired.” The blockbuster HBO series ended with a truncated final season (just six episodes compared to the usual ten) that outraged fans, many of whom criticized the rushed pacing. Harington, who played Jon Snow, doesn’t necessarily disagree with the critics, although he knows there was no way he could muster up the strength to make more “Thrones.”
“I think if there was any fault with the end of‘Thrones,’ is that we were all so fucking tired, we couldn’t have gone on longer,” Harington said. “And so I understand some peoplethought it was rushedand I might agree with them. But I’m not sure there was any alternative. I look at pictures of me in that final season and I look exhausted. I look spent. I didn’t have another season in me.”
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Harington added that “everyone is entitled to their opinion” as far as the controversial finale, adding: “I think there were mistakes made, story-wise, toward the end maybe. I think there were some interesting choices that didn’t quite work.”
Jon Snow lived to see the end of “Thrones,” although he wasn’t exactly at peace. Last viewers saw of him he was riding into the Haunted Forest with his direwolf Ghost and the Wildlings to begin a new life. There was a time when Harington flirted with the idea of returning to the world of “Thrones” with a Jon Snow sequel series, but he confirmed earlier this yearthat the project has been shelved.
“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 told British GQ about the spinoff. “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.”
“We spent a couple of years back and forth developing it,” he continued. “And it just didn’t … nothing got us excited enough. 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.’”
The “Thrones” franchise lives on thanks to the popular prequel series “House of the Dragon,” which recently wrapped its second season. The show is already renewed for Season 3 and has plans to air a fourth and final season. A second “Thrones” prequel, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” is also on the way. Harington recently told the Associated Press that he’s not a “House of the Dragon” viewer.
“I just can’t watch it,” he said. “I think for me it’s just I’ve spent too long there. And I wish them all the best. I hear it’s wonderful and going really well. But I don’t think I’ll ever watch that show, and I don’t think I’ll watch ‘Game of Thrones’ again for a few years.”
Harington is currently back on HBO as a supporting actor in the third season of “Industry,” which airs new episodes Sunday nights on HBO and Max.
