Game Of Thrones star Kit Harrington has opened up about his past addiction.
In a new interview with The Times, Harrington spoke about his alcohol addiction issues both during the filming of Game Of Thrones and in the aftermath when he eventually sought help to get clean.
He said: “Things that have happened to me since Thrones ended, and that were happening during Thrones, were of a pretty traumatic nature and they did include alcohol.”
“You get to a place where you feel like you are a bad person, you feel like you are a shameful person. And you feel that there’s no way out, that’s just who you are. And getting sober is the process of going, ‘No, I can change.’ One of my favourite things I learnt recently is that the expression ‘a leopard doesn’t change its spots’ is completely false: that a leopard actually does change its spots.
“I just think that’s the most beautiful thing. It really helped. That was something I kind of clung to; the idea that I could make this huge fundamental change in who I was and how I went about my life.”
Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen and Kit Harington as Jon Snow in ‘Game Of Thrones’. Credit: HBO
The actor went on to explain how prior to getting sober, he suffered from depression and felt suicidal at one point.
“I will give you an answer to that question: the answer is yes. Yes of course,” he said when asked by the interviewer if he ever felt suicidal.
He continued: “I went through periods of real depression where I wanted to do all sorts of things…maybe [speaking about this will] help someone, somewhere. But I definitely don’t want to be seen as a martyr or special. I’ve been through something, it’s my stuff. If it helps someone, that’s good.”
Eventually, following treatment, Harrington says he overcame his addiction.
Harington took a year-long break from acting after the end of Game Of Thrones, before returning with one episode of the anthology series Modern Love.
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