Don't bother asking Kit Harington how the final season of Game of Thrones turned out on screen, or how it felt to watch Jon kill Daenerys. Not because it's a sore point, or because he's tired of talking Game of Thrones—but because he hasn't actually watched it yet. When Entertainment Tonight asked Harington at the Emmys how he tolerated the controversy over the show's final outing, he responded, "I still haven't seen the show," adding, "So that's how I dealt with that controversy. I haven't seen the final season."
He still took the opportunity to defend the season against fan outrage, however. "I know what it took to shoot it," Harington said. "And it was hard and everyone put their love and effort into it. And controversy—I think for us, we knew what we were doing was right, story-wise. And we knew that it was right for the characters because we lived with them for 10 years. So controversy for us didn't really affect us."
Frankly, it's unsurprising that Harington hasn't revisited season eight: Dany's final scene in particular sounded like a harrowing thing to film. Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter in August, the actor explained, "We felt a sense of responsibility over it. We shot the hell out of it. It was essentially a page and a half of dialogue, and we spent three weeks filming it. They wanted to shoot every conceivable angle, every way, to make sure they got it the way they wanted it."
"When you're shooting the same scene for two weeks and it's a page and a half, it becomes a long exercise in concentration," Harington continued. "You have to remember the energy you're bringing in, every day, and making sure it's consistent. With a highly emotionally charged scene like that, it's quite a lot, for everyone—the crew, me and Emilia. It was tiring. It's one of the hardest things we filmed." Kit, if you're ever tempted to revisit that scene, might I recommend you sit yourself down in front of a soothing episode of The Great British Baking Show instead?
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Emily Dixon is a British journalist who’s contributed to CNN, Teen Vogue, Time, Glamour, The Guardian, Wonderland, The Big Roundtable, Bust, and more, on everything from mental health to fashion to political activism to feminist zine collectives. She’s also a committed Beyoncé, Kacey Musgraves, and Tracee Ellis Ross fan, an enthusiastic but terrible ballet dancer, and a proud Geordie lass.
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