New York Daily News

‘Throne’ together, Harington & Bradley also close off-screen

- BY GINA SALAMONE

In the Night’s Watch, your sworn brothers are all you have.

When Jon Snow and Samwell Tarly “took the black” on “Game of Thrones” the pair became unlikely fast friends.

The same is true for Kit Harington and John Bradley, the stars who play the pair on the blockbuste­r HBO show, which returns for its eighth and final season on Sunday.

“We’ve been close ever since the first day we met really,” Bradley, who portrays Sam, told the Daily News. “What’s interestin­g about our relationsh­ip is I’m one of the very last people to become a close friend of Kit before he became what he’s become. Neither of us were well-known when we first met each other, and I was one of the very last people to meet him without this cloak of fame on him.

“We could go anywhere we wanted and nobody would recognize us or speak to us and we were just able to forge our bond in quite intimate circumstan­ces.”

British-born Bradley, who’s 30, adds they “were both scared because we’ve never been through anything like this before.”

Bradley was in the audience last weekend at “Saturday Night Live” to support host Harington, 32, jokingly calling out, “Do you know what happens to Samwell Tarly on the show?” In a moment reminiscen­t of the end of “The Breakfast Club,” Bradley asked Harington if they could still hang now that the show is over.

Back in Westeros, Bradley’s alter-ego Sam — who’s been on the road and at the Citadel the past two seasons poring over historical records and gathering informatio­n that has shaped the show and Jon’s path — will be back in the middle of the action in Season 8.

If Sam gets to tell Jon of his royal parentage, he’ll likely be battling alongside the King of the North as they fight the evil White Walkers and their army of the dead.

Just as Jon relies on Sam, Harington leans on Bradley.

“When he’s in a moment where he’s doubting his ability to do stuff, he’s doubting anything about himself, you just have to say, ‘Well actually, I think you may have forgotten how great you are as an actor and as a person,” Bradley said about the “humble” heartthrob.

“The level of fame that he has and the level of interest that’s on him,” Bradley adds, “I think that sometimes you need to just remind him that, ‘You’re actually really good and I really value you as a friend and respect you as an actor.’”

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