Kit Harington

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1:13There's a certain satisfaction when you work with someone. Maybe we could be a family. You sadistic pig! The Paper. New season streaming September 9th, only on Peacock. This show gives me a reason to laugh. Have you sorted yourself? Where are you at? Have I what? Sorted yourself. What house are you in? Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm Gryffindor. You're Gryffindor? Yeah, yeah, obviously. That's the most insulting question you could possibly ask. I'm not Slytherin, Josh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gryffindor. So just back off. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins.

1:51Hey, guys, it's Josh. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Today on the show, it's Kit Harington. Yes, Jon Snow is in the house talking not only Game of Thrones, but Harry Potter, Marvel, A Tale of Two Cities, and more. Thanks, guys, as always, for checking out the podcast. Remember to subscribe if you haven't already. YouTube, Spotify, whatever podcast platform you're using. I appreciate you guys. And remember to check out our Patreon. If you like what I do, if you want early access to what I do, bonus materials, all the sorts of fun stuff that support Happy Sad Confused, check out patreon.com slash happy sad confused.

2:25Okay, so main event today. We always have a first-time guest on the pod, and this is someone that it's long overdue to have Kit Harington here, but to be fair, he hasn't really done much in the way of podcasts, so I really appreciate him taking the time to do this today. There was a ton to talk about. His new project is A Tale of Two Cities. It's on NGM +, and of course it is based on the Charles Dickens classic, but you know I'm going to talk about Game of Thrones and Marvel and Harry Potter. It all comes up here, and Kit is in a great place in his life now. Well, he's been through it. He's talked about it openly, dealing with addiction issues way back when and coming out the other side and now being a dad, having a great career going, just being happy and well adjusted.

3:03It was great to see him in good spirits today and have a great career chat about so many, so many cool projects. So a brief intro today because we're going to get to the main event. I hope you guys enjoy this. Remember to check out A Tale of Two Cities on MGM Plus and enjoy this conversation with me and Kit Harrington. Kit, should we do this? Yeah, let's do it. Welcome to the podcast, man. Thank you. It's good to see you. It's been a minute. And I know you don't do a ton of this kind of thing, so I really appreciate you, like the long-form stuff. I think this is the second podcast I've ever done.

3:37I appreciate the trust. Yeah, so I'm sorry if I'm terrible. You're going to kill it. You're going to kill it. I think the first time I met you was briefly for, you came to MTV Studios for Testament of Youth. Wow. That's my recollection. You were a little intimidating to me back then. Really? you were am I less intimidating now now you're whatever I'm like Kit coming in no I don't know I think you project I don't know what do you think you project into the world like do you feel like you've you have kind of a demeanor that you consciously or unconsciously project I think it's changed yeah I think I tried to project something but probably around that time into the world maybe that came across as intimidating I don't know you were perfectly lovely don't get me wrong it was nothing rude about you But, yeah, sometimes, you know, it's an energy thing.

4:25And maybe at that time you were in the height of a lot of things. Yeah. I think I was trying to project some sort of gravitas. Is that right? And some sort of seriousness. And now? Now I don't really care. I've been too long in the teeth now. We were catching up in terms of, like, where you're at in life and work. Busy being dead, obviously, to two kids. Doing the press stuff for A Tale of Two Cities, which we'll talk about. also seem to be working quite a bit. I feel like you've been in the city a bit. Have you spent a lot of time in our fair city, New York lately? I was here for a good few months earlier this year filming a TV series for Hulu called Count My Lies.

5:06And yeah, we moved the family over here. I was here throughout the whole next run, which is amazing. Oh, come on. Did you jump on the bandwagon? Yes, I did. I went to game four. I know. I was so lucky. I was like, so cheeky as well. Like I had no right to those tickets. You knew. I had zero right to those tickets. Had you ever been to a basketball game before? No. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Well, maybe like one at the Knicks like previously, but I was not, you know, I was passing people in the street on the way there that were like diehard Knicks fans. Yeah, like crying. And I did, there was a bit of guilt that I was getting to go, but I now consider myself quite a serious Knicks fan.

5:49Did you know what was going on? Did you know the basic rules of the sport? Yes. By the end, I was really clued up. Yeah. No, I'm starting to resent you. Now I'm starting to get angry. I resent me too. I would resent me. No, not at all. What is your relationship to New York? I mean, it's like, I always feel like the Twin Cities, London and New York. I grew up in New York. I love London. I feel like folks, I don't know. There's a symmetry there in some ways. I find it, I love it. I find it, I mean, it sounds like the most obvious thing. I find it quite intense. Yeah. Like, it's about three notches faster than my general pace of life.

6:24Okay. And so I can deal with it for a few weeks. But then after that, I find that my, I'm an anxiety-ridden person anyway. My anxiety is up. Yeah. And I have to, I'm then questioning why that is. And I go, well, maybe it's the city. And then I step out and I'm, okay. But I love coming here. Yeah. And it has a kind of like, it gives me a fix. but um i do also love leaving you've you've never i don't think you've done theater here have you you've done so much theater in your life no is that is that not a i mean again for the reasons you just described maybe it's not a priority but still there's something about bringing your talents here on the stage would be exciting no there's been times and there's been times there i've done a show in london that you know there's been talk of it transferring or coming to New York.

7:14I have nothing against Broadway. I would love to do some Broadway or Off-Broadway or whatever. I think it is now, it's a practical element for me. I have two young kids, they're in school. It means uprooting everyone for a long time. It's difficult. It's difficult to factor that in nowadays. Did you come to the States a lot as a kid? What was your relationship to? No, the first time I ever came to America or was to New York. And I did this trip down the East Coast. I was 18 and I came by myself and I went, New York, it's not a very long trip, New York, Washington, Philadelphia. Or New York, Philadelphia, Washington.

7:55Sure, sure, sure. You've got some major landmarks out of the way. That's good. Yeah. Some of the... Yeah, and it was amazing. I remember feeling like I'm walking onto a film set. I fell in love with New York then. Yeah. but yeah it's all a bit in the misty in the misty part of my memory were you watching our silly sitcoms our silly pop culture were you as much engaged with American pop culture as stuff back home yeah yes I think it sort of was limited in my childhood to the Chicago Bulls yes so there we go so you see I am a a legit NBA fan my blood. The Chicago Bulls. What was my childhood memory of America?

8:43The US. Chicago Bulls. Friends. Of course. And like maybe that's it. I'm not whatever the word is in America file. I'm not like... But I remember it feeling like Rome. Like being the center of the world sure and um and and i think if you were kind of born and raised in the west like i was yeah it held a kind of mythical place yeah the um the reason that you've come in today is i was complimenting you before a tale of two cities is an ambitious piece of work as you would hope it would be based on the source material uh this is on mgm plus where were you at when this one comes around i mean i would imagine like it's often as much about like where you're at in your life what you're looking to do lifestyle wise as the material sometimes did this catch you at the right time in terms of what you were looking for or this was a long process yeah uh about 10 years ago my producing partner and best friend dan west and i we did um a show called gunpowder right another period piece um and that was the first thing we produced in our company and after that was done you know we started knocking around other ideas and it was quite quickly that we landed on the idea of doing Tale of Two Cities because we just felt it had not that Dickens, we loved Dickens and we were both big fans of the book and but it felt like every Dickens that there was had been trotted out almost yearly but Tale of Two Cities hadn't been done since the 80s.

10:27It's funny, I was thinking back to this it's like I can't actually think of like a definitive recent or even ancient kind of depiction of it. And not a successful depiction of it. It's a difficult one to adapt. There's a reason perhaps, yeah. But it's the reasons it was difficult to adapt. We isolated to being, okay, you have these two central characters around this central character, the female central character, and they're meant to be identical. Right. They're doppelgangers. Right. and that's always like posed the question of okay do you have the one actor playing the same parts and I think that never works right not tempting to you because like a lot of actors would be like oh not tempting at all really double the number of days I'm thinking practically and just like my ego is big enough I don't need to play too far let Tom Hardy do all the double roles I just think it never works I think it's a really hard thing to pull off and I don't think it works yeah so there was that That's one reason we felt it hadn't really been done.

11:27And Dan sort of posed the idea that you only need these guys to be similar enough. Yes. That in a court of law you can throw up a reasonable doubt. And that without spoiling it towards the end there can be a moment where they get confused for one another. Right. And the other problem with it is it's bilingual. Yes. That you've got the Tale of Two Cities. It's French and English. but we felt that now audiences have a much greater capacity for reading subtitles. So we felt that this was the time to do it. And once you get past those two issues, the story is fantastic. It is a sweeping romance in the backdrop of a bloody revolution.

12:10It's got all of the elements to make a great, entrancing, propulsive period drama. and then you've got to try and sell the thing and is that difficult I mean your dramas are difficult yes people love them once they once they come to screen people really enjoy the period nature or something but they're they're difficult to get off the ground at times and that's why I took a little a little beat but thankfully you know we had a wonderful company called Federation and then MGM Plus came in and and and they believed in it so what's got a scale it It feels like it's a massive production again, as something like this would demand.

12:54Yes. I mean, it sounds like Gunpowder might have been a shift for you in terms of realizing to have some agency in crafting a production. Yeah. Do you get something more out of something like this, like Gunpowder, where you have a seat at the table? Yeah. I love it. And I'm not interested particularly in, when you're doing your actors' deals with things occasionally, though, like the Vanity thing. and I'm not interested in that because I feel like if I'm an exec producer on something I should be an exec producer on something so I'm only interested in that regard coming in as an exec if I'm actually at the table and with Dan and I stuff we're there from word go building it from the ground up and learning our craft as producers as we go and we're still very green I think but yeah I I'm restless as a person, and I find that I am unsatisfied sometimes.

13:59This is very greedy of me, but I'm unsatisfied just being an actor on something. The famous adage is they pay you to wait, right? That's what you're being paid for. I'm bad at waiting. I'm an impatient, restless person. So I find myself on sets, that's muscling in and trying to make directorial decisions. And I have to stop myself. And that's why I directed something recently, because I was like, if you really want to do it, you should go and direct something. But the producing is part of that. Like, I'm really interested in that creative producer side which says, okay, this is an amazing story.

14:34Can we build something out? But can I ask you, because you mentioned directing, I saw the trailer for it, I don't think it's available online yet. Like, you did a short with, among others, great Harry Melling. Yeah. i just saw him in a film at one of these festivals he's just so talented he's amazing um did that scratch that itch that kind of like ignite something in the under directing side of things like what did you get out of that experience it absolutely did yeah interestingly and it also gave me a new appreciation for actors because until that point i'd be like i was like acting is actually not you know probably the easiest element of filmmaking but i i then being on the other side of camera and watching what Harry was doing and Kieran was doing, the two actors we had not in the short, you know, I would come in and I'd give some really crap, simple piece of direction, like, okay, that was perfect, but could you try it with a bit of vulnerability, or a bit more, just up the vulnerable.

15:31And watching them take this bad dialogue I've written and upping the vulnerability in it, and just it totally changing and going, and And knowing that I knew how to do that myself made me appreciate the art of acting. But the directing side, I just, it was explained to me like this, and I thought it was, this is a really good way of putting it, Miguel Sapochnik, who I worked with on Game of Thrones and has become a good friend, guided me through it. And he said, what you are is a fishing net. You put all the best people that you can find around you. and you catch their ideas as they go through.

16:10And I love that because I love being at the center of all these ideas coming to me and going, that's good, I'm not sure about that, let's work on that one, and just like twiddling here and there. Yeah, no, directing is kind of like saying yes and no to a thousand options essentially, and then that's how you're finding your own voice, but it's foolish to think you have all the answers. Like the best is to... And knowing when to trust in someone else's thing. Yeah. More Happy Say Confused coming up.

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20:29So back to this production, from a character perspective, from an acting perspective, what's intriguing to you about Sidney? Kind of like an archetypal anti-hero in some ways. What do you get out of it from an acting perspective? I think he fascinates me. I mean, there's so much about him that I relate to personally, like he's gone through, or he's going through, he's an addict. He, what I really love about that character is he is a lawyer and always two steps ahead of everybody else. And he's two steps ahead of the reader or the audience. And that's the thing he struggles with is that he's incredibly smart.

21:15And almost too smart for this world which makes him very cynical and nihilistic. But I think the way I approached him and what I felt was the right way to approach him was at this point in the story, the only thing that keeps him going is the booze or being in a courtroom. And in walks this incredible entity of Lucy Manette and he suddenly gets a new belief in life. The trouble is that he approaches it from an addict-y standpoint. So he looks at her to be his fix, that she's going to fix everything for him. If they just are together, then that's going to be the thing that solves him rather than coming into it as an equal partnership.

22:12Now, I won't spoil the end for anyone, but the end is one of the most iconic endings in any literature and if you are watching the show or gonna come watch the show please follow the through yeah because the end is beautiful but I think his realization at the end is it is about I don't know how to say it with that I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hadn't read the book. But it's about, he does feel completed in the choices he's making. I mean, it's interesting to hear you talk about parallels that you feel, the character, and you've been honest and open about dealing with your own issues in the past, addiction, etc.

22:58I mean, is that scary for you to kind of go to characters that share some of that stuff that you've reckoned with yourself? Because you could go another way. Like, I don't want to fucking even think about that side of myself. No, I love it. I realized I love it. I did a couple of seasons on Industry. I'm filming that as well at the moment with a character who has to delve into that stuff as well. And I realized that it's a way of getting... It's now fun. I now get to have fun as Sidney sozzled in a bar or Henry doing lines or whatever it is. like I get to I get to like really exercise something without the consequences that you once had to do without consequences of drinking or whatever it is so yeah no I I also think that you know I have this belief that any good character is addicted to something I think it's built into all drama it's built into all humans like we're all we all have our addictions some manifest they just manifest in different ways i mean i suppose some personalities just were wired differently some have more addictive personalities generally but yeah so there's always it's call it what you want they're super objective whatever it is there's something that they desperately want and i i look at that almost as from an addict standpoint like what is he what is he addicted to yeah you know it's usually pretty clear it's a person or a thing or a objective or a um you know he's hunting the truth or he's addicted to himself yeah like whatever it is like it's there and then you've got your kind of your core kind of principle to the person that's interesting it must like kind of clarify your purpose as an actor like once you kind of walk in like what is the reason for this person to get up and you know out of bed what are they driving towards it kind of like answers a lot of questions yeah it does and i I often find if I'm reading a script and I can't see it, I'm like, I don't know how to play this.

25:02Yeah, right. Yeah. I don't know how to play this. I don't know what this person wants. And there's probably something either wrong with the script or it's just a part that's not for me. Right. All right. Since we have the luxury of time, if you'll indulge me, let's go back a little bit. So young Kit, I was just asking this to a lot of guests, like extrovert, introvert, was it clear very early on to those in your friends and family that you were going to be a performer? Or did that come late? I think he probably was, I think definitely extrovert. Yeah. I would describe myself still and then as anxiety-ridden extrovert, maybe, I think.

25:40I think I was quite loud and verbose as a kid and me, me, me and look at me and wanted attention and enjoyed attention. Yeah. I had a very busy brain always and wanted to be heard a lot. So, yeah, I think I'd like to say I'm introverted, but I'm not. I'm extroverted, but incredibly socially anxious at the same time. How did anxiety manifest when you were a kid, when you were a teenager? Like, in what kind of situations? like i i is it is a teenager like i i'm very um i i you know i think that i would i would crawl off into a into a cupboard and hide this is a metaphorical no no a real cupboard if i was in a social situation i would go like in a party he's in his cupboard yeah yeah yeah i would often be found like just kind of like breathing because it all got too much yeah but um i i think i'm i'm one I'm one of those, whatever that is, I'm one of those.

26:51But I was, as far as being an actor or creative, I always sort of assumed, I actually have a distinct memory of wanting to be a journalist, and then I looked at some old school stuff, and at like age 12 I'd written, and said, what do you want to be when you grow up? when I said, an actor, just really clearly. And I think that was my A plan and B plan. It was, oh, my A plan is actor, but that is incredibly difficult to make a life out of. And what else am I interested in? I'm interested in journalism. So that was kind of my B plan in some ways. What were you, did you have posters on the wall? Were there?

27:37All icons, all iconography. it was like Bob Marley Dylan sure are there any actors I'm sure like I'm sure why am I why am I drawing on the name of Marlon Brando course like it was all big but my whole bedroom was covered every inch of it was covered with artwork or or posters and they were all posters of of quite of icon icons really yeah both from the acting and the music world were there did you have a genre of film you gravitated towards that were you into kind of like you know genre stuff obviously you end up working in a lot of genre affair was that your bag as a kid too or not really no no it wasn't um i always liked a horror movie though yeah and i still do what's your good have this big year for hard have you caught up with obsession i loved obsession i thought obsession was brilliant it's exactly the type of horror i like as well yeah and they were both the two leads in that were both incredible yeah i think she is she he is well but but no indy there was something about her that was just that was a magnetic performance yeah i loved that film trying to think have you done horror i'm i'm biking I did a very long, long, long time ago.

29:05I did a movie based on a video game. Oh, Silent Hill. Silent Hill. Silent Hill Revelation 3D. That old chestnut. That old chestnut. Other than that. It's a good sign. I did one. I did Baby Ruby. Okay. It was a kind of interesting, it was a lovely kind of little kind of horror thriller I did. That's what we talked about. That's what we talked about in Toronto. Yeah, it was that. We got there. We were trying to remember when we last saw each other in Toronto. Were you Silent Hill? Gamer? Clearly not. You couldn't come up with the name of it. Were you a gamer? No. No, I... No, not a gamer. Not a gamer.

29:47I don't know why. I feel like I played... The only game I've ever played, really, was Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing. and some Tekken. Sure. And then recently the Harry Potter game. That was the thing I played. Amazing. We'll get to that, obviously. It's not Grand Theft Auto. Everyone's going to be talking about Grand Theft Auto. No, but I do want to play that. I've seen it advertised. It's going to be bigger than any movie this year. You know how much. It's a gazillion dollars. I watched this brilliant video of these guys. There's a video on YouTube of these guys pretending they're in. Have you seen those?

30:25It's so good. Because of how real the graphics are now. Yeah. There's videos of people actually walking across the street. Like, as in the game. And then beating someone up. And it's brilliant. Amazing. More Happy Say Confused coming up.