I’ve gone up for a few rom-coms but I’m not sure if I’m a rom-com person
He may be back in period costume for BBC1’s explosive new drama Gunpowder, but Kit Harington tells GEMMA DUNN he is planning to ditch the cloak and sword when Game Of Thrones finally ends
TAKING a break from his duties as King in the North in the hit TV drama Game of Thrones, Kit Harington is plotting a different kind of coup as the mastermind behind the failed gunpowder plot of 1605. Why should we watch Gunpowder? THE story follows such a fascinating, dark and twisted piece of British history which is very close to being forgotten in the fog of time.
You may know the name Guy Fawkes – as it has been attached to all sorts of things, from Occupying Wall Street to V For Vendetta – but many won’t know the whole story.
It goes far beyond the name Fawkes and examines many fascinating characters and their desperate, tragedy-strewn lives.
Gunpowder is all about choices, and the reasons desperate men make such choices, and it makes for a really great drama. We think we know everything about the Gunpowder plot – Guy Fawkes’ attempt to blow up Parliament. But is there more to learn? THERE really is – Guy Fawkes was the tip of the iceberg.
Many people know he was working with plotters, but don’t know much more about who they were or what their motives were. And so little is known about the lead-up to the night of November 5, or what happened after it. In Gunpowder, we show the whole story.
In so many dramas on TV today you see anonymous bad guys without a narrative, but what we’re trying to do is to tell the story from the plotters’ perspective as well, to try to understand what pushes people to do horribly violent things.
We wanted to tell a story from both sides. You’re playing your ancestor, Robert Catesby? MY mother’s maiden name is Catesby and my middle name is Catesby, so way back when we were thinking about doing this piece, I knew I wanted to be in it and I knew it would hopefully help get it made, but I didn’t know if I wanted to be Fawkes or Catesby or which of the plotters.
So I wasn’t aiming to play my ancestor – it just so happened that Catesby was the one that fitted.
You go that far back and everyone is related to everyone, really.
Most of us around this table are probably related to Catesby in some way! Is there a resonance to issues in society today – the idea that people are driven to extreme forms of behaviour? ABSOLUTELY, it’s one of the reasons why we’re making this.
We don’t want to make a historical drama that has no resonance with today – we absolutely want to make a drama that people will relate to when they watch, and I think all historical drama should be that.
I’m very bored if I see a historical drama, which is just about a piece of history. It has to relate to people watching it and they will. It’s a high octane piece. What do you think audiences will make of the level of violence? WE can’t avoid the torture that these men went through, we can’t avoid the executions that the people around these men suffered.
I think it’s wrong when showing a torture scene or execution scene to shy too far away from the reality of it.
I think audiences will accept a
greater level of violence, so long as it’s justified.
I’ve always felt, for example, if you take Thrones, the violence is justified because unlike so many things we see how it affects people – if you see someone die, you see the effect it has on the person who’s killed them and you see the effect it’s had on the people around them.
I think as long as it’s not gratuitous for no reason. It was definitely not gratuitous in this. You’ve been heavily associated with one role for a long time – what would you like to do when Game Of Thrones wraps next series? I DON’T want to predict what I’ll do next – Thrones is coming to a very quick end, which I am feeling quite emotional about.
I like doing whatever I like doing and luckily this was a piece that, if it had been sent to me, rather than me being in it from the start, I would have genuinely wanted to do it.
But I feel like I might never have been asked to do this piece in some ways. I don’t know, it’s hard to tell. Should we expect the unexpected from you next then – perhaps a rom-com? MAYBE not a rom-com. I’ve gone up for a few rom-com’s and I don’t know if I’m a rom-com person.
There was a certain level of (Gunpowder), of being in a cloak with a sword, that was ‘Oh here we go’, but maybe I love it. Maybe I secretly love it and this is the thing I want to do forever. (But) I have other ideas that I would like to look at producing.
I have all sorts of completely unrealistic ambitions – acting and beyond the world of acting.
Really, really unrealistic ambitions. I never really want to say what I am planning on doing, I just hope I get to keep doing it. If I don’t, I don’t, but this has been a wonderful thing to do towards the end of Thrones. Is it, in a sense, liberating coming to the end of such a long journey? IT’S coming to an end at the right time for me and everyone involved in it.
I was exchanging emails with (GoT creators) David and Dan last night and we’re all getting very emotional and soppy with each other – but it will be liberating.
Just the thought of having a whole year free. I am looking forward to finishing, and eight years is exactly the right time. I wouldn’t want it to go on any longer. Gunpowder is on BBC1 tonight at 9.10pm.