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Kit Harington will next appear in Eternals, the upcoming Marvel movie in which the actor plays one of the few human characters, Dane Whitman, known in the comics as the Black Knight. However, things may have been very different had Harington accepted an offer to play a superhero a few years back, while he was appearing in the world-conquering HBO series Game of Thrones.
"I won’t mention what it was, but yeah, there was one other [superhero movie] that I did turn down a while ago," he tells Total Film while discussing Eternals for the new issue of the magazine. "It was a while ago, as well – just because it didn’t feel like the right thing at the right time. And I think I was right to. My head was very in the Jon Snow world then."
Harington appeared as Jon Snow through Game of Thrones' eight seasons, helping establish the actor as a household name. He won't, though, reveal which superhero role he turned down.
"You know, the comic-book and superhero world has called once before, and I didn’t like the role and the part and the time to do it," he says. "So I turned it down. And then this one [in Eternals] felt right to me. I liked that the character they were offering was not necessarily an Eternal. He was human. I did like that. I felt that I could do something with that, that he came with all these human faults. So it was the character that drew me to it, as well as it being the MCU, and how exciting."
Speaking previously about his Eternals character Dane with Total Film, Harington sums him up as "the human character of the story. He’s not an Eternal. He’s a character who works with the Natural History Museum in London. But he’s not an Eternal – that’s the main takeaway!"
"I’ve got no idea whether my character goes on or not,” he says. "I had read up on who he could be, or might be. So there’s the possibility for a longer trajectory. And hopefully, I think this is the tip of the iceberg for my character. I hope. But I just don’t know, you know? I’m as in the dark as anyone else. And I try not to live too far ahead in the future with anything. Even when I was in Game of Thrones, even on the sixth season, I presumed the seventh season wasn’t going to happen!"
Whether there will be more Eternals remains to be seen – but director Chloé Zhao has promised that the first movie will have major ramifications on the wider MCU.
Eternals is set to open in cinemas on 5 November. For more on Eternals, be sure to pick up the new issue of Total Film magazine – featuring exclusive interviews with Zhao and the entire cast – which is available to order NOW. And as this is a special line-up, there’s not one but FOUR covers to collect, featuring all 10 heroes. Check them out below…
And if you’re a fan of Total Film, why not subscribe so that you never miss an issue? You’ll also get it before it’s in shops, and you’ll get exclusive subscriber-only covers like the Eternals one you can see below. With our current subscription offer at MagazinesDirect, you’ll get the magazine half price too, so what are you waiting for?
