“Game of Thrones” star Kit Harington recently discussed “psychological scarring” and how becoming famous affected his life.
The 37-year-old actor detailed how he became dependent on alcohol while starring in the hit HBO series. Harington shared details as part of an upcoming episode of the podcast “The Hidden 20%.”
“People would treat me like the character. But in my life I didn’t feel like that at all. And that [led me to] some psychological scarring,” he said of his time playing the “Game of Thrones” character Jon Snow from 2011 until 2019.
Because fans expected him to be like the character he played, Harington said he tried “to project this image of utter sophistication and coolness about what I was doing but genuinely being sort of terrified about everything.”
“That is a dangerous rabbit hole to fall down because you find all of the bad stuff that people are saying as well as the nice stuff,” he added.
Harington said he entered treatment for alcoholism right after the show ended and wound up getting diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), per Deadline.
“I realized that my life was hinging on this,” he told podcast host Ben Branson. “Luckily, it was the right place at the right time. I managed to forge a new life from there.”
Harington said his first rehab wasn’t a fit. He explained that he “entered rehab drunk, sobered up in there, and went, ‘F*** this, not you guys in a circle. No, thank you.’”
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His next experience at a treatment center was better and was where he got diagnosed with ADHD. “And I left that pretty quick and said, ‘I’ll try to deal with this by myself,’ which didn’t work after about four years,” Harington added.
Now the actor spends most of his time with his family, including former “Game of Thrones” co-star Rose Leslie, whom he married in 2018, and his two young children.
“My head wants to go to every other thing in the room at once,” he said of family time, saying that even though he is “sober” and present” at home, he sometimes gets “restless” while playing with his children.