Kit Harington and Sophie Turner spent eight seasons playing siblings on Game of Thrones. Then they had to go and film a romance together, and Harington has some very specific feelings about how that went.
The two reunited for The Dreadful, a gothic horror film released in 2026 in which they play lovers rather than the half-siblings Jon Snow and Sansa Stark fans spent a decade watching them portray. It was always going to be a strange ask. But in a new Variety Actors on Actors sit-down alongside Peter Dinklage, Harington was refreshingly honest about just how strange it actually was.
Kit Harington on the Awkwardness of Filming With a Childhood Friend
“Obviously I’ve known her since being a child,” Harington said. “She feels like my younger sister. It was gross but it was fine.”
Dinklage, sitting right there, had the only reasonable response: “She is!”
The exchange is funny, but what Harington said next landed differently. He went on to praise Turner’s performance directly, saying, “She’s an amazing actor. I know we all know that, but she was a child when she got cast in GOT but she is phenomenal.”
Turner herself had already been upfront about the weirdness on both sides. In a behind-the-scenes clip shared ahead of the film’s release, the two could be seen jokingly retching after an onscreen kiss, once the director called “cut,” with the crew laughing in the background. Turner had previously told Seth Meyers that the two were “both retching” during their intimate scenes.
It was actually Turner who recommended Harington for the film, having produced The Dreadful herself alongside director Natasha Kermani. So she went out of her way to cast the person she’d find most awkward to film with, which honestly tracks for someone who spent years navigating Game of Thrones set dynamics.
Despite the awkwardness on camera, Harington said their friendship ignited all over again on set. “What was lovely is that we got on set together and our friendship completely ignited again,” he said. “It felt like being with family. It really did.”
Turner was just 14 when filming began on Game of Thrones, and Harington has watched her grow up across nearly a decade of production. His praise carries real weight because of it. Not a co-star being polite on a press tour, but someone who actually saw the work up close for years.
The Dreadful is available now via Lionsgate.
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