Confessions of Fire and Ice: The Real Life of John Snow Israel today

Every morning, shortly after he wakes up his six-month-old baby, Kit Harrington calls his mother to say thank you to her - so much so that parenting is a revelation to him.

"I can not think of taking my parents that way, of course. I look at my son and think to myself, 'I will never get the gratitude I deserve for changing all those diapers and for taking care of you!'"

The baby was born at University College London Hospital last January. Harrington and his wife, actress Rose Leslie - whom he met in "Game of Thrones" when she played Yagrit - do not want to be named. Harrington is afraid of needles and fainted in one of the prenatal tests, so no, he did not cut the umbilical cord. "I'm so weak when it comes to blood and pain," he says. His experience from birth still concentrates on the utter shock he experienced: "I remember saying over and over, 'This is a baby. This is a baby. This is a baby.'"

Fatherhood and family play a central role in the 34-year-old Harrington's new life.

He has been sober for two and a half years, after a period in rehab, and is grateful for his life - but very carefully, because sobriety is a fragile matter.

That period was so dark that he thought of ending his life.

And it coincided with the last days of John Snow, the character who played in Game of Thrones for a decade.

"Life today is wonderful. I have a child and I have a wonderful relationship. I am a very, very happy, satisfied and sober person."

And yet, his speech in the first zoom conversation between us remains, alarmingly, the speech of a heavy-headed, tormented and sober man.

He has a hard time sitting comfortably in his "too-short shorts," and then has a hard time with the "too-bright light" that penetrates through a window in his hotel room in upstate New York.

But most of all, he has a hard time with my questions and says at one point, "Yeah, I'm talking nonsense."

The reason is perhaps the four PR people participating in the conversation, a number too large even in today’s British Spears era.

They promised not to intervene in the conversation (and intervened).

They promised he would talk about rehab, family and work, but Harrington gave short answers, to the point where I felt tormented by the conversation with him no less than he was tormented by it.

John Snow, the character that Harrington played in "Game of Thrones" for ten years, has become for fans the ultimate hero.

The sooty, epic warrior-lover, contemplating the situation against scattered corpses, flying snow or rising smoke.

As his character became more and more central in the series, Harrington felt much more exposed in real life.

He could not go to the supermarket without hearing the fears of any passage.

Women screamed when they saw him, sometimes crying.

The attention was so intense that when he played in a theater production in the West End, the hall was flooded with crowds.

One fan bought a front row seat every night for 40 shows.

When I point out to him how he is often described as one of the sexiest men in the world, he disapproves.

"I have a problem being described as sexy, handsome, or stuff like that, because it's very disrespectful. It disparages women and men alike. It disparages anyone who is characterized by his looks, no matter how. Some people might say that's what brings me work, But I just do not like it. "

What brings you a job?

"My game. I hope it's something I bring to the screen, that's beyond how I look, damn it."

• • •

After a weekend in which, he would tell me later, he would torment himself that this was a strange first conversation (and she did), Harrington calls me, this time without the publicists supervising him as if he were a little boy.

He apologizes, saying he may have suffered a bout of laryngitis.

Isn't there a bigger cliché for someone who doesn't want to talk than "I lost my voice"?

He says that not only was he pressured to say something about rehab, but he was also afraid to talk about topics that were close to his heart.

"I have a real fear that they will really get angry at me if I say something that I believe in and that might hurt people, or a certain group of people."

We'll get back to that.

But first, fatherhood.

"The first three months were light torture," he admits.

"Kind of hell."

But he’s starting to learn the thing, like changing diapers and “being a dad,” while his wife is filming for a new HBO series, which brought them both to New York for the next few months.

"Being a dad is fucking ..." he lingers.

"I mean, in all honesty, my back is ruined. I go to the gym often, but there's something about having a child who completely empties you physically. I take my hat off to every parent in the world. You're geniuses, I do not know how you do that. "It's because it's more exhausting than anything I did in Game of Thrones."

"The marriage has been examined, to the point of breaking."

With his wife Rose Leslie, Photo: EP

The advice he received about parenting was endless, even about the right way to leave the hospital.

Still, it bothers him that no one has said how much his life will change.

"My tip for new parents is: Take a moment to say goodbye to your previous life. You are so preoccupied with preparing to be a parent, that you forget. Then it's too late."

How would you like to say goodbye to your previous life?

"In a kind of bachelor party."

Harrington nonetheless prepared for the existential crisis of paternity by adopting a Whift puppy, which arrived last March.

He does not want to say whose idea it was (my guess is his wife), but "it was a practice in projection. "I have never had a pet, and I guess a child is like that, but a thousand times. I just have to be careful not to throw my anxiety on the child too much."

• • •

Christopher "Kit" Harrington and his older brother Jack grew up in Acton, west London.

On both sides of his family he is a descendant of the nobility: his father, Sir David, was a businessman and the 15th Baronet of the family dynasty;

A portrait of Lady Harrington from 1603 hangs in a 15th-century house he shares with his wife in Suffolk.

His mother, Deborah, a playwright and artist, is a descendant of

(Catsby is his middle name, in fact), one of the Catholic conspiracy theorists of "The Fire Dust Plot", and Harrington even played him in a 2017 BBC mini-series.

When he was 11, the family moved to Worcestershire, where he attended a comprehensive school, following his parents' fervent belief in public education.

Although he admired his parents ("I made them perfect on an unattainable level"), he speaks with great affection especially of his mother.

According to him, because of her he wanted to be an actor.

"I wanted to do what my mother did. She was a real hero for me. As with any child, you try to do the thing that will make you get your parents' approval. Then suddenly it works, and you're an actor, and a professional actor, and you start to succeed. You say. "Well, who am I trying to impress now?"

Although he does not criticize them, he says that the desire to impress is not something he would like to convey to his son.

"I have to be careful about that."

Leslie (34) is also a descendant of the nobility, a descendant of Scottish tribal chiefs, who grew up in castles in Scotland.

He does not remember when he first saw her on the set, but "I have a memory left that is like a postcard, and then I realized that she is very beautiful and attractive in any way."

In the series she was the savage who redeemed John Snow from his virginity (and provided the eternal line, "You know nothing, John Snow"), and in reality they will soon be celebrating ten years of marriage.

"For a while, our young age and commitments to work made us be together, then not together, and then together again. Until we realized that not being together is much more boring than being together."

His marriage proposal was cinematic: by moonlight, by a campfire, in a rural area surrounded by trees.

The wedding took place in 2018 in Scotland: traditionally, surrounded by actors and crew from the series, before returning to film the final and epic episodes of "Game of Thrones".

"It was a time of intense emotion and physical exhaustion," he says, "I cried quite a lot at the ceremony."

• • •

In the three years since Harrington shed Snow's fur coat - "an act that was like tearing my skin off myself" - he has been through some traumatic experiences.

"My life has become dark," he says.

"Quite traumatic things have happened to me since 'Game of Thrones' ended. They also happened during the series, and they included alcohol."

Indeed, there were occasional reports of his behavior while under the influence of alcohol, and in one case his agent was forced to issue a sweeping denial, when a Russian model named Olga and Suva posted photos in which he was allegedly seen unconscious on a hotel room bed.

Harrington said he had never met her.

Although this is a cliché he does not particularly like, he says he has reached a low point.

"You get to a place where you feel like you're a bad person, a person who deserves to be dressed. And you feel like there's no way out, it's just who you are. Detoxification is a process that says 'no, I can change.'

"One of my favorite things I learned recently is that the phrase 'would a tiger turn into a swan?'

"He is completely wrong: a tiger is actually changing his swamps. The idea is that I can make this huge and fundamental change in who I was and how I conducted myself in my life."

I asked if he felt suicidal.

He hesitated, finally saying, "The answer is yes. Of course. I went through periods of real depression, and I wanted to do all sorts of things. I tell you this in the hope that it will help someone, somewhere. But I definitely do not want to look like a martyr. I went through something. "That's my thing. If it helps someone, it's good."

He underwent $ 130,000-a-month treatment at a Connecticut institution for "materials and behaviors."

I ask what he means, and he says, "mostly alcohol."

It is clear from his voice that he is still having a hard time talking about the issue.

"My marriage has been tested, to the point of breaking down. You can imagine the pressures it causes the people around you. But I'll say about my addictions that I kept very, very secret, so they were a kind of surprise to the people around me. What happens often, I guess ".

Not long after weaning, and before parenthood, the quarantine came.

"It was a time of relaxation, thoughts, and I dare say - romance. Leslie and I went back to our spacious village house, read books, tended the garden and performed scenes together. Leslie taught me what kindness is."

• • •

Harrington was twice nominated for an Emmy Award for his role as John Snow, in 2016 and 2019, but did not win.

His candidacy for the Golden Globe, in 2020, did not end in a win either.

Although he is grateful for the Game of Thrones experience, and also, no doubt, for the salary - which has reportedly reached half a million dollars per episode - he now wants to expand his artistic range.

In November, the new action film starring him, "The Eternal", which was produced by Marvel Studios following the events described in "The Avengers: The End of the Game", is about to be released.

Harrington is currently making an independent film, and when he returns to the UK he will be on stage in London as Henry V - "a role I always said I was willing to kill to play."

"If you look at it closely, it's very sensitive."

Harrington as John Snow in Game of Thrones, Photo: EP

He recently participated in the filming of the episode "Modern Love" - ​​an Amazon series, based on articles about relationships published in the New York Times.

The episode, "Strangers on the Train," takes place on a train in Ireland before the first closure, and Harrington plays a handsome stranger, with whom a student strikes up a conversation.

"This is a beautiful and artistic episode," he says, "I like that my character moves away from the strong character of a silent man who shows no emotion."

You mean, like, John Snow?

"Actually, I don't think John Snow was like that. If you look at him closely, he's very sensitive, and I hope some of the sensitivity went through what I was trying to do with him."

He thinks a lot about masculinity and the way it is defined.

"In my youth I would look at greeting cards for Mother's Day and Father's Day, and see how men are portrayed as breadwinners who do nothing at home. It made me think the situation was unfair, for both sexes.

"It's very scary to get into this subject, but I have a deep and genuine concern about toxic masculinity. At the drama school I attended, we grew up with the hero type of Russell Crowe in 'Gladiator.' A feeling of 'Who is the alpha? Who is the best of our group?'. I thought to myself, 'Now you have pushed me to the place where I am either alpha or beta, what choice is that?

How were you as a teenager?

"Pretty dragged, to be honest. I realized I was kind of a chameleon because I did not know where I fit in. I tried to be gothic, but the goths did not accept me. I tried to be a skater, but I did not know how to skateboard. Maybe it's part of being an actor: in the end I wanted to be A little bit of everything. "

In interviews, he often mentions his obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Thus, for example, he used to kiss the floor three times before going on stage, kiss a cross or a picture of his mother and his brother, and more and more.

"I had something with three drain holes, and I decided I had to stand on the middle with my right foot. I got to the point where I had to cross the road to stand on them. If I missed, I had to go back. Those things became part of the problems I had to get rid of."

He admits there were times when he dealt with fame poorly ("Like all of us, I was a maniac"), but his old friends made sure he stayed with his feet on the ground.

"I had the great privilege of having friends who don't knock an account, and they told me the truth. Someone once said to me, 'When you sit at a table and you pay for everyone, that's the point you know you'm in trouble.'

Right now, tobacco is his only "deviation."

He stopped using cigarettes, but I can hear him inhaling an e-cigarette during the call, "and I'm trying to get rid of it, too."

Today he is already living in reconciliation with John Snow, after battling the demons of playing this huge role.

He slaughtered them - not with the "Longklow", the large sword he used in the series;

The accessories department did not allow him to take her home.

No, he slaughtered the fear he had, that Snow would wrap up the rest of his career like the fur robes he used to wear in the series (which, too, had already been taken back by the costume department).

"I put up with the fact that you do not lightly wave such a character at yourself. He is there all the time, he is with you. As long as I have a career, I will be described as 'the one who played John Snow,' even if I do something equally successful. It was a process. "It took a while until I started to be proud of it. Today I'm at a point where I might be able to watch the series. In fact, I'm still a little far from it."

shishabat@israelhayom.co.il