Kit Harington isn’t happy with one vocal portion of the “Game of Thrones” fandom.
In a new interview with the New York Times, Harington — who played Jon Snow on the HBO fantasy epic — admits he was upset when he saw that more than a million fans had signed an online petition asking for the much-maligned eighth and final season of “Thrones” to be remade “with competent writers.”
“That genuinely angered me,” Harington says, because he saw firsthand how much work showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had put into crafting Season 8. “Like, how dare you? Sorry, that’s just how I feel. I think it was a level of idiocy that can only come about through social media.”
What’s more, Harington was actually checked into a rehab facility for stress and exhaustion when the “Thrones” series finale aired in May 2019, so he didn’t know what the fan reaction was until he came out of rehab and “was shocked by the negative response,” the Times reports.
The petition to remake the final season actually made it all the way to HBO boss Casey Bloys, but he flatly rejected the idea of a do-over: “The petition shows a lot of enthusiasm and passion for the show, but it wasn’t something we seriously considered.”
A planned Jon Snow spin-off never made it to air
After “Thrones” wrapped up its eight-season run, Harington gave his agent a strict “no swords” rule for all future projects, but he did toy with the idea of reprising his role as Jon Snow in a spin-off for HBO. Book author George R.R. Martin first revealed in 2022 that Harington was on board for the proposed spin-off, but two years later, Harington confirmed that the spin-off was “firmly on the shelf.”
Harington later explained that “nothing got us excited enough” when it came to developing an idea for the Jon Snow spin-off. “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.'”
He’s back in the HBO fold now, though, playing tech CEO Henry Muck on the UK finance drama “Industry,” with Season 4 currently airing Sundays at 9 pm.
This story originally appeared on TVLine
