10 More Actors Who Prepared For Roles In The Worst Possible Way

4. Kit Harington - Game Of Thrones

Jon Snow With Longclaw In Game Of Thrones
HBO

With the role of Jon Snow, Kit Harington landed himself a part that went on to launch him to superstardom.

At its launch, a large majority of viewers expected Game of Thrones to be based around Sean Bean's Ned Stark. Of course, those plans were hit hard when poor Ned had his head lopped off in shocking fashion, meaning all bets were off where Thrones was concerned.

One character who would step up to lead the show forward until its eight seasons drew to a close in 2019 was Ned's 'bastard', Jon Snow. But for Kit Harington, he prepared for this role in a way that was far from ideal.

First of all, Harington arrived for his Jon audition with a black eye after getting into a fight the previous night in a McDonalds. If that wasn't enough to put the actor up against it, he thought he'd completely blown his big chance when he delivered his audition in his natural London accent.

As he told Interview Magazine, Kit had completely not realised that all of the sons of Ned were supposed to have similar accents to Sean Bean's legendary Yorkshire twang.

Luckily, he was able find Jon Snow's voice relatively quickly, while he told W how he thinks the black eye actually helped him to land the role.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer and Presenter, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund and Eli Roth to Kevin Smith and the Russo Brothers, to Kevin Conroy and Frank Miller, to Bret Hart and Sting, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, and Brian Flynn, to many, many more. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is a long-standing season ticket holder and an FSA Award-winner for his time co-hosting the Fearless in Devotion podcast.