Kit Harington almost lost a testicle filming Game of Thrones’ dragon scene

Kit Harington nearly lost a testicle while filming a scene where his Game Of Thrones’ character Jon Snow rides a dragon.
While his co-star Emilia Clarke is well versed in the work that goes into making such a scene look realistic, Sunday night’s (14Apr19) season eight premiere was one of the first times Kit has had to take on the challenge.
The 32-year-old actor opened up about the difficult task in a HBO behind-the-scenes featurette titled Game Revealed, and explained that he had to ride a mechanical “buck” – which stands in for the dragon’s back – before special effects are added in post-production.
“Buck work is not easy. I think what sums up the buck for me was there was a bit where Jon almost falls off,” he recalled. “The dragon swings ’round really violently, like this. And my right ball got trapped, and I didn’t have time to say ‘Stop!’ And I was being swung ’round.”
“In my head, I thought, ‘This is how it ends, on this buck, swinging me around by my testicles… Literally.'”
Maintaining a straight face until the crew started laughing, Kit then giggled: “Sorry, probably too much information.”
Kit and his co-stars have admitted how tough they found it to shoot the show’s final season, with the programme’s conclusion being kept tightly under wraps. But for any critics who dared to slam the departing episodes, Kit had some words of warning.
“I don’t mean to sound mean about critics here, but whatever critic spends half an hour writing about this season and makes their (negative) judgement on it, in my head, they can go f**k themselves,” he said during a Q&A piece with Esquire magazine.
“I know how much work was put into this. I know how much people cared about this. I know how much pressure people put on themselves and I know how many sleepless nights, working or otherwise, people had on this show. Because they cared about it so much. Because they cared about the characters. Because they cared about the story. Because they cared about not letting people down. Now if people feel let down by it, I don’t give a f**k – because everyone tried their hardest.”