Kit Harington: I’d love to play James Bond – but I think I’m a little way off that

 
Playing Bond: Kit Harington as Will Holloway in Spooks: The Greater Good
Emma Powell4 May 2015
The Weekender

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Kit Harington was given a taster of the 007 lifestyle after starring in Spooks: The Greater Good – the big screen version of the hit BBC MI5 series.

The 28-year-old actor – made famous for his role as Jon Snow in HBO’s Game of Thrones – plays Will Holloway, the protégé spy of MI5 agent Harry Pearce (Peter Firth) in the modern thriller.

Speaking to the Evening Standard about whether he would like to succeed Daniel Craig as James Bond he said: “God, if they came to me I’d consider it, but I think I’m a little way off that.”

Harington’s character undertakes a raft of Bond-esque stunts in the new film. His opening scene sees him smash through a restaurant window. He later scales a block of flats and gets embroiled in a tussle with a terrorist on the roof of the National Theatre, but the London born actor – who doesn’t like “getting help with [stunts] because it doesn’t look natural” – was taken by surprise when his head was smashed through a wall.

“That wall wasn’t meant to smash,” he said. “It was a weak wall, obviously, but luckily I hit it with my shoulder first. It made for a great shot.”

Spooks: The Greater Good in pictures

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The actor – who stars as a sword wielding bastard son in Thrones and plays a troubled spy who is unsure of the truth of his father’s death in Spooks – said he is drawn to troubled characters.

“I like something going on in there,” he said. “Some sort of tightening knot that is churning up someone inside, where they don’t say much necessarily and they don’t do much, but you can see everything going on.

“From someone who is from a very secure loving family it’s a weird thing to want to play.”

He described joining the production as “daunting” but revealed that everything he does of late is a “certain level of daunting”.

“When you’re doing a movie like this you know there will be posters on the tube, a lot of people are going to go and see it and will watch you and break down your performance," he said.

But although he now cares “less about what people think”, serving on The Wall as Snow for four years in Game of Thrones has not made seeing himself on posters any easier.

“It’s still strange,” he said. “I walked onto the tube the other day and there was this poster of me in a cap. I feel like I’m hunting myself with a gun through the tube every day.”

Despite starring in several stage productions, as well as playing Milo in Paul W. S. Anderson’s Pompeii and Roland Leighton in the film adaptation of Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth, Harington has accepted that he will forever be connected to Snow.

“It will always be Kit Harington aka Jon Snow, but I love playing him and being part of Thrones. Go back five years and knowing everything I know now, would I take the role? Yes.”

Spooks: The Greater Good is set for UK release on May 8, 2015.

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