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Sophie Turner has declared it was ‘dreadful’ having to play lovers with her former Game of Thrones co-star Kit Harington.
The British actress, 29, rose to fame playing Sansa Stark in the blockbuster fantasy drama series, which ran for eight seasons from 2011 until 2019.
Meanwhile Kit, 39, played her character’s older half-brother Jon Snow across the series.
Now, six years after the show came to an end, the pair are reuniting on screen again in the new Gothic horror film The Dreadful.
A loose remake of Japanese movie Onibaba, the film is set in the 15th century during the Wars of the Roses. It follows Anne (Sophie) and her mother-in-law Morwen (Marcia Gay Harden), who ‘exist on the outskirts of society when someone from their past re-enters their life’.
That figure is Jago, played by Kit, with whom Anne appears to strike up a relationship after he returns from war and her husband does not.
The trailer for the movie was released this week, which teases intimate moments between the pair.
However, when appearing on Nick Grimshaw’s BBC Radio 6 show today, the actress admitted this role was particularly challenging due to having to playing Kit’s lover.
‘I’m in it with my old pal Kit Harington…but we are now quite the opposite [to Game of Thrones]…we are lovers,’ she said.
‘Acting…what a trip!’ she added.
Continuing, Sophie explained: ‘Because I’ve known him since I was 13, he is like an older brother, so it’s actually really disturbing. It was dreadful.’
Aside from starring in the film, the actress is also an executive producer on the upcoming release.
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‘I really enjoyed it. It’s really nice to have agency over the character’s stories. Sometimes you show up as an actor and you don’t have a choice of anything like what you wear or how your hair is, so it’s nice to have so much agency over it. I loved it, what an experience,’ she said.
But when asked if she’d ever consider more behind-the-scenes roles, specifically directing, she said: ‘I couldn’t direct. I think I am an actor at heart and I also don’t like production meetings.’
In an interview published with Vogue last year, Sophie also addressed playing Kit’s lover, apologising to Game of Thrones fans. ‘It’s really weird for all of us,’ she said.
During an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers in August, she also recalled both her and Kit ‘retching’ while kissing during the first scene they filmed.
‘So, I sent the script to Kit, and he kind of sent me a message back going like, “Yeah, I’d love to, but this is going to be really f***ing weird, Soph”. And I was like, “What is he talking about?” Then I was reading [the script] and it’s like, “Kiss, kiss, sex, kiss, sex…”,’ she said.
‘And then I’m like, “Oh, shoot, that’s my brother”. We put it out of our minds, and then we get on set and it’s the first kissing scene, and we are both retching. Like, really, it is vile. It was the worst.’
However, they pushed through as it was such a ‘good script’, with Kit telling her: ‘We kind of have to do it.’
Meanwhile Kit previously told E! News: ‘She was one that sent that movie to me and somehow didn’t see what I saw in it. I was like, “These guys, these are lovers, right?” I felt very odd about that. But it was a good chance to be with her again and work together. It was slightly embarrassing, having to get on an apple box to kiss her because she’s about a foot taller than me. But other than that, my dignity was pretty intact,’ he explained.
‘What was lovely is that we got on set together and our friendship completely ignited again. It felt like being with family. It really did,’ he added.
In the years since Game of Thrones wrapped up, Sophie has starred in the ITV series Joan, the recently released Amazon Prime thriller Steal, and the upcoming Tomb Raider series as Lara Croft.
Kit’s most notable role has been as Henry Muck in the BBC financial thriller Industry.
Despite many Game of Thrones fans being disappointed by the series’ controversial ending, earlier this month Sophie defended how the show finished.
Talking to The Direct about whether she’d be interested in returning as her character to one of the sequel projects that, according to Collider, author George RR Martin has said he’s working on, Turner said jokingly: ‘Show me the money’, before adding: ‘I don’t know, I think it would be hard but also amazing to come back to it.’
She went on: ‘But I feel that I was very happy with the way Sansa ended her story in Game of Thrones, and no one else was really happy with their ending. I feel like I got a good one, and so I don’t know if I could revisit it.’
Sansa Stark finished season eight as Queen of the North after it was re-established as an independent kingdom, while viewers said other characters’ plot lines, like Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), came to sudden endings.
There were viewers so upset with the way it wrapped up that a petition was created to ‘remake Game of Thrones season 8 with competent writers’ which received 1.8m signatures.
Speaking to The New York Times, Kit recently said the petition ‘genuinely angered’ him, noting how much effort the writers put in. ‘Like, how dare you? Sorry, that’s just how I feel. I think it was a level of idiocy that can only come about through social media.’
In 2019 Sophie told the same publication the petition was ‘disrespectful to the crew, and the writers, and the filmmakers who have worked tirelessly over 10 years, and for 11 months shooting the last season’. ‘Like 50-something night shoots. So many people worked so, so hard on it, and for people to just rubbish it because it’s not what they want to see is just disrespectful.’
The Dreadful will be released in cinemas on February 20.
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