'I felt very unsafe': How Game of Thrones forced Kit Harington into therapy

Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen and Kit Harington as Jon Snow in Game of Thrones. Photo / HBO

Kit Harington sought therapy at the height of his 'Game of Thrones' fame.

The 32-year-old actor was under intense scrutiny at the end of the fifth season of the fantasy drama series, when his character Jon Snow was killed off - only to be resurrected early in the following series - and he was struggling with his confidence and questioning his acting ability.

He told Variety: "When you become the cliffhanger of a TV show, and a TV show probably at the height of its power, the focus on you is f***ing terrifying.

"You get people shouting at you on the street, 'Are you dead?' At the same time you have to have this appearance. All of your neuroses - and I'm as neurotic as any actor - get heightened with that level of focus...

"It wasn't a very good time in my life. I felt I had to feel that I was the most fortunate person in the world, when actually, I felt very vulnerable. I had a shaky time in my life around there - like I think a lot of people do in their 20s.

"That was a time when I started therapy, and started talking to people. I had felt very unsafe, and I wasn't talking to anyone. I had to feel very grateful for what I have, but I felt incredibly concerned about whether I could even f***ing act...

"It's like when you're at a party, and the party's getting better and better. Then you reach this point of the party where you're like, it's peaked. I don't know what I could find more from this. You realise, well, there isn't more. This is it. And the 'more' that you can find is actually in the work rather than the enjoyment surrounding it."

The show is due to end after the upcoming final season and Kit admitted that, for the first time, relations between the cast grew "strained" but he insisted they are all fine again now.

He said: "[The shoot was] in extreme weather and just in heavy f***ing costumes.

"I was there the whole time this year. I felt a bit like people were coming in and out, and Jon Snow was just f***ing there the whole time.

"You have these in-jokes, and these relationships that thrive for eight years. That's a long time for those jokes to be going, and they never felt old or tired.

"In the last season, I was like, these are getting tired now. And I think they got tired because we could see the end coming.

"That's a way of emotionally detaching from something: relationships very slightly starting to strain, just on the edges, just frayed. Now everyone loves each other again."

-Bang! Showbiz