Kit Harington Spoke Candidly About Addiction & Male Anger

In June 2021, it was announced that Kit Harington would portray Henry V for a production of the Shakespeare play at Donmar Warehouse in London. With the actor set to take the stage this April, Harington recently spoke to the Guardian about his role and how it helped him deal with his recovery from addiction.

As Harington told the Sunday Times in 2019, he “went through some pretty horrible stuff” when Game of Thrones came to an end, as well as during the show’s run, which “were of a pretty traumatic nature and they did include alcohol,” he said. After checking into rehab, the actor has been sober for nearly three years. “I’m well on my path to recovery, and all I can say to anyone thinking about it is it’s a wonderful way of living life,” he told the Guardian. “It saved me, for sure.”

Harington feels “like a much more grounded, settled person” after dealing with his addiction, which he’s “so grateful” happened before having a child. He and fellow Game Of Thrones actor Rose Leslie welcomed their son in February 2021. And despite not being very well towards the end of Game Of Thrones’s run, the actor looks back at his time on the show with “great fondness” due to what it gave him in the long run. “There’s a baby boy downstairs, and my wife, who I met on the show,” Harington said. “I looked at it from a perspective of tortuousness and anxiousness a lot when I was in it. I’ve got no reason to be doing that now.”

Game Of Thrones also gave Harington dozens of opportunities to return to the stage – including Henry V. And this role, in particular, has significant meaning to the actor, as it gave him “a way of exorcising demons” after perceiving the character as a recovering addict – as Shakespeare implied in the play.

The role also carries a distinct commentary on masculinity, which links to the current epidemic of male violence in the UK. “I see it everywhere,” Harington observed. “I see confused men walking the streets. I see terrible role models. I see a lot of anger, and I think we need to start dealing with that anger – we as men, but we as a society as well.”