Kit Harington

Kit Harington (born 26 December 1986) is a British film, television and stage actor.

Background
He was born Christopher Catesby Harington. Ironically for playing a bastard, Harington's ancestors include an Earl, a Viscount, a line of Baronets, through which he can even trace descent from King Charles II of England, King William I of England, Hugh Capet, King of the Franks, and Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor.

One of Kit Harington's ancestors was actually Sir John Harington, who in 1596 invented the modern flush toilet - hence why they are colloquially known as "Johns". Sir John even installed one for his godmother, Queen Elizabeth I. The flush toilet remained fairly rare, however, until in the nineteenth century businessman Thomas Crapper commercialized the mass-produced flush toilet.

Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones is Harington's first major television role, having previously appeared on stage in the play War Horse and Posh.

He stars in HBO's Game of Thrones as Jon Snow. He was announced in the role on 19 July 2009. He was part of the initial starring cast and remains a member of the starring cast for the fourth season.

Harington's third audition scene was actually a scene between Jon and Ygritte from Season 3, even though at the time they weren't certain there would even be a third season. After being cast, Harington quickly read through the first four novels.

Harington broke his ankle in July 2012, in the gap between filming for Season 2 and Season 3. After a night of partying he realized he lost the keys to his flat, so he tried to climb into his first-floor window, then fell. As Harington explained: "Everyone always says you must have done it on set horse riding or running across glaciers or something cool...I was an idiot. The 'invincibility of youth' and all that. I couldn’t even blame it on a film set. And I had avoided skiing for ages because I thought I’d break my ankle!" Actors' schedules were rearranged to give Harington maximum time to recover, and the Iceland shoot was pushed back a couple of weeks. The production also occasionally used a double for a few scenes, such as showing Snow walking in the distance (the actor having "such distinctive hair" helped with the illusion, the producers semi-joked). Producer David Benioff said that "By time we got to Iceland he was moving well enough so you couldn’t really tell."

Costume designer Michele Clapton explained how the production team tried to accommodate Harington's injury: "Kit Harington was in a cast for a lot of the time. They asked me to create a boot to cover it, but it was impossible because it was a great big, white foot! We couldn’t shoot it at first because there was no way we could cover [his cast]. Later on he had a medical boot that he could take off, but he still couldn’t walk. We cut the back out of his [costume] boot so that he could put it on without having to actually step into it and just bound it to his leg. He managed really well, considering the amount of pain he was in. Thankfully he’s much better now, but that was a tricky one.