Kit Harington

Kit Harington graduated from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and went straight into a lead, playing Albert Narracott in the West End production of War Horse in 2009. Two years later he was Jon Snow. Game of Thrones ran for eight seasons, took most of his twenties, and brought a Golden Globe nomination and two Emmy nominations. It also fixed a public image of a solemn young man in the snow that his film work has spent a decade arguing with.

The argument has gone better on stage. He returned to the West End repeatedly, in Doctor Faustus in 2016, True West in 2018, the title role in Henry V in 2022 and the London transfer of Slave Play in 2024. He also developed, produced and starred in the 2017 BBC drama Gunpowder as Robert Catesby, which happens to be his own middle name.

The films have been hit and miss, and he seems to know it. Pompeii and Seventh Son were the standard offers made to a young man leaving a fantasy series, and neither landed. He is considerably better in support, where somebody else carries the plot and he can play interiority instead of destiny: the young poet in Testament of Youth, the voice of Eret across two How to Train Your Dragon films, a well judged run in the third season of Industry. Eternals gave him a Marvel foothold the studio has not yet used. The most interesting version of his career is probably the one happening in theatres, where nobody is asking him to be an icon.