This article contains spoilers for the third season of Industry
Along the narrow path beside Regent’s Canal, Joggers weave past tables of lunchers and boards inviting them in for a cocktail. It’s a balancing act: one wrong swerve and they could end up underwater. Just around the corner, Kit Harington walks into a small cafe and immediately reads my thoughts: “Is it a bit too loud in here?” I look around, see the gurgling coffee grinder, the baby whining on my lap next to me, the guys in work jackets who look like they have a lot of catching up to do, and nod.
So we go out and across the road to this corner of north London where Harington lives – well, part of the year anyway – with his wife, the actress Rose Leslie, and their two young children, to try out a new place outside a delicatessen. Not good. We’ve barely started talking when a car rumbles past and Harington glances at my tape recorder, frowning – Jon Snow, sensing a wildling. “Right,” he says, “there’s a pub across the road. Let’s try that.”
We finally settle down in the little corner of a quiet beer garden and he gets us drinks – two mineral waters – while the sky above us continues to toss a coin between summer and spring. Our new location feels somehow inappropriate because one of the topics I want to ask about is his treatment for alcoholism in 2019 at the height of his game of Thrones fame. That year, his life and the show went into a tailspin at the same time. Harington checked himself into rehab in America – still drunk – just as the finale, six seasons in the making, was being torn apart by fans and critics with such fervor that there was a petition (still online) to force the makers to remake it, which was signed by over 1.8 million people. “I went in and everyone loved Thrones; I came out and everyone hated it,” Harington says. “I thought, What the hell is going on here?!”
It turns out there is no reason to worry. Harington like being around alcohol – likes to dance with drunk people, even likes to go to Glastonbury, which he describes as “sober ninja stuff.” Over the next two hours, the story of his recovery will take us to some dark but hopeful places. But one thing is immediately clear: Harington looks like GoodNot good in the sense of good-looking – although he is of course that too – but good in the sense of well, relaxed, currentlyHe has the eyes of a young father: exhausted but slightly sparkling, as if he were seeing in color for the first time, and a few gray strands in his black beard. But nothing in the 37-year-old’s demeanor betrays fear or impatience.
It is, I must admit, a relief. I first met Harington in front of a world in 2017, when game of Thrones was at the height of his cultural dominance, and he was arguably the most recognizable face on television. He was polite but distracted, a little distant. As he later said of that period, “I tried to project this image of absolute sophistication and coolness in what I was doing, but in reality I was afraid of everything.” It took a lot for Harington to get from where he is today, but he’s happy to talk about it. “OK,” he says, leaning forward, “is that definitely quiet enough now?”
