After Game of Thrones, Kit Harrington no longer wants to play heroes
“I find it more interesting to be interested in people who are completely crazy.”
For eight years, Kit Harrington was Jon Snow – the illegitimate child of noble origins, tender heart, valiant and courageous, saving his family from enemy armies and the White Walkers. Since that day, the actor Game Of Thrones suffers from a role that sticks to him and from which he cannot get rid of – that of the hero.
After the small screen, spectators saw him play gladiators with noble honor in Pompeiia former British secret service agent saves his country from a terrorist threat in MI5-Infiltration and more recently the Dark Knight alongside Richard Madden – Robb Stark, his half-brother at heart – by joining the forces of the MCU in The Eternals. It's the last straw.
Interviewed by Entertainment Weekly, the Brit admitted that he no longer wanted to play this archetype. From now on, he would only like to play antagonists – the villains.
“If I look back on the roles I have played since a hero in every sense of the word in Game Of Thrones, I have to admit that I felt some reluctance. I'm not that interested in playing heroic characters. And if I'm going to do that, then they have to be more anti-heroes.”
Unlike Jon Snow, Kit Harrington lends his features to a sociopath drug and weapons dealer who looks like a mafia boss in Blood for Dust – and this delights him: “I rarely get to play characters like Ricky, the kind of scumbag antagonist.”
He had been waiting for five years to play such a role.
“Heroes are so hard to play and make interesting. It's much more fascinating as an actor, I think, to understand someone who is flawed and deeply wrong, to try to understand why they do all these things. (Playing) a guy who does everything right and is only motivated by good, it's harder (…) I find it more interesting to be interested in people who are completely crazy.”
(By chance?), the spin-off centered on his character in Game Of Thrones was recently canceled by HBO. This gives him more time to concentrate on his desire to play the antagonist.
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