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Game of Thrones: Kit Harington on Why "Snow" Spinoff Didn't Happen
Kit Harington discusses why "Snow," the Game of Thrones sequel spinoff focusing on Jon Snow he was developing, never became a reality.
Kit Harington can take it or leave it as far as continuing his signature character of Jon Snow from Game of Thrones. It's a lot to bear on any actor to shoulder the responsibility of putting such an epic franchise on your back, even if he didn't have to do it alone with co-stars like Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen), Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister) among several others who heard the backlash from the eighth and final season. While promoting his current HBO series Industry, currently in its third season, Harington spoke to GQ about a multitude of things, including staying humble and grateful for what the George R. R. Martin franchise has done for him and how he may have developed cold feet might have stopped his sequel spinoff Snow from becoming a reality.
Game of Thrones: Kit Harington on Being Protective of Jon Snow Legacy
When it comes to terms with what he's accomplished and the fame he achieved from all eight seasons of the David Benioff and Dan Weiss series, "Yeah. There's a lot of baggage that goes with it, and I think that was part of the problem," Harington said. "In some ways, you need to divorce completely from this previous thing, and we're only a few years after it. The role 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 recognised in the street because of it. [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."
When it comes to why "Snow" was shelved, "I don't really want to say," Harington said. "Because it starts a whole thing. What I can tell you is it was HBO that came to me and said, 'Would you consider this?' My first reaction was no 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. 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.'"
Until then, we will just have to wait until Martin, HBO, and Harington decide to greenlight Jon Snow's new adventures with the Wildlings (check out the entire interview). New episodes of Industry air Sundays on HBO and are available to stream on Max.