Kit Harington

Kit Harington
Harington in 2014
Born	Christopher Catesby Harington (1986-12-26) 26 December 1986 Acton, London, England
Alma mater	Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2008–present

Christopher Catesby "Kit" Harington^[1][2] (born 26 December 1986)^[1][2] is an English actor. He rose to prominence playing the role of Jon Snow in the award-winning HBO television series Game of Thrones,^[3] which garnered him a nomination for the 2016 Primetime Emmy Award.^[4] Harington also played lead roles in the films Pompeii, Testament of Youth, and Spooks: The Greater Good, as well as supporting roles in the films Silent Hill: Revelation and Seventh Son. In 2014, Harington had a voice role in How to Train Your Dragon 2.^[5]

Early life and ancestry

Coat of Arms of the Barons Harington, ancestors of Christopher Catesby "Kit" Harington.

Harington was born in Acton, London,^[6] to Deborah Jane (Catesby), a former playwright, and Sir David Richard Harington, 15th Baronet, a businessman.^[7][8] His mother named him after Christopher Marlowe, whose first name was shortened to Kit,^[9] a name Harington prefers.^[10] Harington's uncle was Sir Nicholas John Harington,^[11] 14th Baronet,^[12] and his paternal great-grandfather was Sir Richard Harington, 12th Baronet. Through his paternal grandmother, Lavender Cecilia Denny, Harington's eight times great-grandfather was Charles II of England.^[13] Also, through his father, Harington descends from Scottish politician Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville.^[14]

Harington was a pupil at the Southfield Primary School from 1992 to 1998. When he was 11, his family moved to Worcestershire^[15][16] and he studied at the Chantry High School in Martley until 2003.^[17] He became interested in acting after watching a production of Waiting for Godot when he was 14,^[18] and he performed in several school productions.^[17] He attended Worcester Sixth Form College, where he studied Drama and Theatre (2003–05). When he was 17, he was inspired to attend a drama school after seeing a performance by Ben Whishaw as Hamlet in 2004.^[15][19] Harington moved back to London when he was eighteen and, a year later, attended the Central School of Speech and Drama, graduating in 2008.^[20][21]

Career

Harington at SDCC's 2013 Game of Thrones panel

Before acting, Harington originally wanted to become a journalist, a cameraman or a war correspondent.^[22] While still at drama school, he landed the role of Albert in the National Theatre's adaptation of War Horse.^[2][22][23] The play won two Olivier Awards and gained Harington a great deal of recognition. He was later cast in his second play Posh, a dark ensemble comedy about upper-class men attending Oxford University.^[2] After War Horse, Harington auditioned for and landed his first television role as Jon Snow in the television series Game of Thrones. The show debuted in 2011 to great critical acclaim and positive reviews and was quickly picked up by the network for a second season.^[24] Harington's role is largely filmed in Iceland and Northern Ireland.^[25] In 2012, Harington was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor on Television for the role.^[26] Harington made his cinematic debut in 2012 as Vincent in Silent Hill: Revelation 3D. The horror film was based on the survival horror video game Silent Hill 3, and was a sequel to the film Silent Hill.^[27] He was honoured with Actor of the Year at the Young Hollywood Awards 2013, which celebrates the best emerging young talent in film, music and television.^[28]

Harington's first major lead role in a feature film occurred when he played Milo in the Pompeii. Production for the film commenced in 2013 and took place in and around Toronto. Some scenes were also shot in the actual city of Pompeii itself.^[29] The film was a modest box office success and received mixed reviews from critics. That year, Harington also voiced Eret in How to Train Your Dragon 2,^[5] which was a critically acclaimed, box-office success,^[30] won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film and received an Academy Award nomination.^[31][32] In 2014, Harington also appeared alongside Jeff Bridges in the film Seventh Son, a poorly received fantasy–adventure film.^[33] Harington played Roland Leighton, the main character's love interest, in Testament of Youth alongside Alicia Vikander and Emily Watson.^[34] The film was released in wide distribution in the UK on 16 January 2015. Its world premiere was in The Centrepiece Gala, supported by the Mayor of London, at the British Film Institute London Film Festival in October 2014.^[35][36][37]

In December 2014, it was announced that he would feature in Xavier Dolan's upcoming movie The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, with Jessica Chastain, Kathy Bates, Thandie Newton and Susan Sarandon.^[38] Filming began in July 2016 in Montreal, Quebec and will run through to Spring 2017. He starred in the 2015 HBO comedy 7 Days in Hell, a short film about a 7-day tennis match.^[39] In June 2015, it was confirmed that Harington would star in Martin Koolhoven's upcoming western thriller film Brimstone, replacing Robert Pattinson.^[40] In 2016, Harington starred as the main villain in the first-person shooter video game Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.^[41] He is the driver in the current 2016 commercial for the Infiniti Q60 sport coupe car. It is his latest role for product commercials.

Personal life

In 2016, Harington confirmed that he has been in an on-and-off relationship with Game of Thrones co-star Rose Leslie since 2012. ^[42][43][44]

Philanthropy

On September 12, Harington, as well as Cate Blanchett, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Peter Capaldi, Douglas Booth, Neil Gaiman, Keira Knightley, Juliet Stevenson, Jesse Eisenberg, and Stanley Tucci, featured in a video from the United Nations' refugee agency UNHCR to help raise awareness of the global refugee crisis. The video, titled "What They Took With Them", has the actors reading a poem, written by Jenifer Toksvig and inspired by primary accounts of refugees, and is part of UNHCR's #WithRefugees campaign, of which also includes a petition to governments to expand asylum to provide further shelter, integrating job opportunities, and education.^[45][46]

Filmography

Film

Title	Year	Role	Director	Notes	Ref(s)
Silent Hill: Revelation	2012	Smith !Vincent Smith	Bassett !Michael J. Bassett		[27]
Pompeii	2014	Milo	Anderson !Paul W. S. Anderson	Lead role	[29]
How to Train Your Dragon 2	2014	Eret	DeBlois !Dean DeBlois	Voice role	[5]
Testament of Youth	2014	Leighton !Roland Leighton	Kent !James Kent		[34]
Seventh Son	2014	Bradley !Billy Bradley	Bodrov !Sergei Bodrov		[33]
Spooks: The Greater Good	2015	Holloway !Will Holloway	Nalluri !Bharat Nalluri		[47]
Brimstone	2016	Samuel	Koolhoven !Martin Koolhoven		[40]
Death !The Death and Life of John F. Donovan	2017	Donovan !John F. Donovan	Dolan !Xavier Dolan	Post-production	[48]

Key

Denotes films that have not yet been released

Television

Video games

Theatre

Awards and nominations

References

Further reading

• Heath, Chris (April 2014). "Kit Harington on Game of Thrones, Nudity, and His Butt Double". GQ. Retrieved 14 July 2014. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kit Harington.

• Kit Harington at the Internet Movie Database
• Kit Harington speaks about War Horse, London's West End theatre on YouTube