Kit Harington knew he had to “up [his] game when he was “humiliated” by Bella Ramsey in a ‘Game of Thrones’ scene when his co-star was just 11 years old.
Kit Harington knew he had to “up [his] game when he was “humiliated” by Bella Ramsey in a ‘Game of Thrones’ scene.
The 38-year-old actor felt he had complacent playing Jon Snow after six seasons when his then-11-year-old co-star – who plays Lady Lyanna Mormont – tried to give him a prompt when he’d forgotten a line of dialogue.
In conversation for Interview magazine, Bella said: “I don’t know whether you remember this, but I remember it quite vividly and have some remorse for it now, but during that scene I was mouthing your lines to you.
“Now I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, how awful.’ But at the time it came from a very innocent place of being like, ‘Kit’s struggling with his line and I know it, so let me just mouth it to him.’
Kit laughed: “I do remember you helping me out and it being quite humiliating. Bet yeah, thanks for that. I’ve probably chosen to forget it.”
After Bella noted their behaviour was probably “annoying” her former co-star replied: “”It wasn’t at all. If anything I was like, ‘Oh god, I’ve got to up my game. I came here not really being comfortable enough with my lines, in the arrogance of however old I was, thinking I’m just opposite some child. And then that child actor is wiping me off the screen.’
“Not that it’s a competition, but you’re like, ‘Oh, I’ve got a bit too comfortable in my Jon Snow-ness.’ “
Kit recalled how Bella – who identifies as non-binary and uses gender-neutral pronouns – impressed everyone on set with their “confidence and clarity” at such a young age.
He said: “I remember meeting you—it was the first thing you did where we had to come and address you, asking for soldiers.
“I’m going to blow a bit of smoke here, so I’m sorry, but there was a real feeling of you being a different entity of child actor. We were like, ‘Oh, they’re good’.
“You brought a confidence and clarity that was quite unusual for a young actor. It didn’t feel like working with a child. It felt like working with a very experienced actor.”
Bella noted: “I remember not feeling like a child, but now I see 11 year olds and realise how tiny they are, so it’s weird to me that I was that size and that young, because I didn’t feel that tiny.”
Despite the huge scale of ‘Game of Thrones’ and the experience of the cast, the ‘Last of Us’ star wasn’t “nervous at all” making their debut in the HBO series.
They said: “It was my first job ever, so I had no reference point for what it would be like. I weirdly wasn’t nervous at all, because I never knew that I wanted to be an actor, so I didn’t have a bunch of expectations. I was coming into it very much blind.”
Kit Harington ‘upped his game’ after ‘humiliating’ moment with Bella Ramsey
