Kit Harington said that playing Jon Snow on the HBO series "Game of Thrones" broke him down in real life. The actor talked about the impact of working on the intense and often violent HBO series during an interview on SiriusXM's "The Jess Cagle Show."
Harington's claim that his mental health was impacted by the epic HBO series is backed by science — research indicates that acting changes the brain. Aeon reported that research papers published in 2019 indicate concrete evidence that actors' sense of self is changed profoundly by their characters.
US Magazine reported that Harington went to a rehab facility in 2019 for stress and alcohol abuse.
“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.” Read more about Harington's interview and why his experience is not than uncommon for actors.
