Kit Harington doesn’t want to play ‘silent’ men after Game of Thrones: ‘It is not a masculine role that the world needs to see much more of’
Kit Harington says that he doesn’t want to play emotionally repressed, “silent” men in the future.
The actor, who rose to fame playing Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, discussed the idea of “inherited male trauma” and how it stops men from being honest about their feelings.
“I feel that emotionally men have a problem, a blockage, and that blockage has come from the Second World War, passed down from grandfather to father to son,” Harington told The Telegraph.
“We do not speak about how we feel because it shows weakness, because it is not masculine.”
After playing Night’s Watch Lord Commander Jon on the HBO fantasy series for eight years, the 33-year-old said that he hoped the characters he’d play in the future would be less heroic.
“Having portrayed a man who was silent, who was heroic, I feel going forward that is a role I don’t want to play any more,” he said. "It is not a masculine role that the world needs to see much more of.”
During the interview, Harington also revealed that he was raised in a “gender fluid” way, with his mother encouraging him to play with toys other than those marketed at boys.
“I asked for a Mighty Max and she bought me a Polly Pocket,” he said. “I asked for an Action Man and I got a doll – it was very gender fluid from the word go. And I went with it.”
Harington currently stars in the second season of Criminal, which is available to stream on Netflix.
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