Winter is coming … again. HBO is developing a Game of Thrones sequel about Jon Snow — and Kit Harington is in talks to return.
The network is in the early stages of production on the new spinoff show, The Hollywood Reporter revealed on Thursday, June 16. If the series moves forward, then the U.K. native, 35, will reprise his role as the beloved fantasy character.
The show would mark the first sequel to Game of Thrones, which wrapped up in May 2019 after eight seasons. The spinoff series The House of Dragon, set to premiere on HBO in August, is a prequel set 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones.
In the original show, Jon Snow joined the Night’s Watch, where he rose to become Lord Commander and was subsequently murdered by mutineers. After Melisandre (Carice van Houten) brought him back to life, he became King in the North, then allied with Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) to fight against the White Walkers.
Along the way, he discovered that his father wasn’t Ned Stark (Sean Bean), who adopted him as a baby and pretended Jon was the product of an extramarital affair. His real father was Daenerys’ late brother Rhaegar Targaryen (Wilf Scolding), while his mother was Ned’s sister, Lyanna Stark (Aisling Franciosi) — and his real name was Aegon Targaryen.
Jon Snow was Harington’s first TV role, and the show’s popularity catapulted him to a level of fame that many actors never experience. “You get people shouting at you on the street, ‘Are you dead?’” the Eternals star recalled to Variety in March 2019. “At the same time, you have to have this appearance. All of your neuroses — and I’m as neurotic as any actor — get heightened with that level of focus.”
After the show aired its final episode, the Pompeii actor checked himself into a “wellness retreat” to deal with stress issues and alcohol abuse. He later pointed to the series’ intense final seasons as one reason he decided to seek help.
“I went through some mental health difficulties after Thrones — and during the end of Thrones, to be honest — and I think it was directly to do with the nature of the show and what I’ve been doing for years,” Harington explained during a July 2021 interview on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show. “I think I took a sort of break after Thrones where I said, ‘I don’t want to work for a year. I want to really kind of concentrate on myself.’ I’m really happy I did that.”
During the drama’s original run, the Brimstone star was open about how the show’s grueling schedule and difficult filming process affected the actors. “The last season of Thrones seemed to be designed to break us. Everyone was broken at the end,” he told GQ Australia in January 2019. “I don’t know if we were crying because we were sad it was ending or if we were crying because it was so f—king tiring. We were sleep deprived.”
Still, Harington admitted that his last day of filming as Jon hit him in ways he didn’t expect. “My final day of shooting, I felt fine. … Then I went to do my last shots and started hyperventilating a bit,” he told Esquire in April 2019. “Then they called, ‘Wrap!’ And I just f–king broke down. It was this onslaught of relief and grief about not being able to do this again.”
