Game of Thrones star Kit Harington reveals how difficult it was to shoot that 'Hardhome' battle scene
Last night's Game of Thrones featured the show's most brutal and impressive battle scene yet — a brutal massacre at the northern outpost 'Hardhome,' as members of the wildlings and the Night's Watch were slaughtered during a surprise attack from the White Walkers, leading an army of reanimated corpses.
The visual effects-heavy sequence left a huge impression — but in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, star Kit Harington (Jon Snow) revealed that achieving the scene wasn't easy. "It was three to four weeks of shooting for a sequence that should add up to [more than] 20 minutes," he said. "We shot less than a minute a day!"
Harington went on to explain the enormous difficulty of filming a scene in which he fights against skeletal corpses and pale, blue-eyed White Walkers. "Every fight I would shoot three times," he said. "First against a man in a [greenscreen-projectable suit], the second with man who’s not in a green suit, but has full-on makeup to look like a dead person, and the third time I would just fight [without an opponent, striking open air]. It gave them the option of using whichever way looked the best."
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For more from the "Hardhome" shoot, click over to Entertainment Weekly.
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Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.
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