‘If you watch this video, thank you’: A day before his Game of Thrones audition, Kit Harington fought back and his date gave him the chance to play Jon Snow.

It may end up being a method like any other, especially if you’re going to portray a character who lives in a fantasy and violent world like Game of Thrones. According to Kit Harington, the black eye he got in spite of himself on the day of his audition for the upcoming HBO hit series was what landed him the role of Jon Snow — a role he’s also set to take on in his own spin-off. – which unfortunately was canceled recently…

As the actor said in a 2016 video interview with W Magazine, the day before his audition, he went to McDonald’s when a man assaulted a young woman he was dating at the time. Which resulted in a physical altercation with this man…which he lost! The result: a black eye—and finally, perhaps, the Holy Grail that would allow him to play the role that changed his life.

“I had a black eye. I was struggling the night before. I got into a fight with this guy at McDonald’s. I went to McDonald’s with this girl I was dating at the time, it was late at night and there were no seats. They asked this guy and girl he was with if we could sit at the table with them and they said yes.“

However, once seated, things clearly went wrong: “We sat down and pretty soon he started being rude to the girl I was with, calling her names and we were like, “we’re just going to eat, we don’t want any trouble.” Then he called him a naughty pig or something worse, and I stood up and said, “No, you can’t call him that, stand up.” So I challenged him to a fight, which I had never done before, and sure enough, the whole time we were sitting there, he got up and went on…– he continued, raising his head higher and higher, which indicated that this man was much taller than him.

“At that moment I knew I had to throw the first punch or I would look like dirt and be beaten. So I went to the Jon Snow audition with a black eye and I think the man who punched me in the face might have helped me get the part. So if you’re watching, thank you!“

Cockade for the Golden Role: In the end, all’s well that ends well Kit Harington Which of course earned him the now iconic role of Jon Snow over the course of 8 seasons of the series that forever revolutionized the world of the small screen.

And if there are two lessons to be learned from this story, the first is this Kit Harington There’s chivalry (Jon Snow would be proud of him) and that a black eye for an audition isn’t such a bad idea!

Hear him tell his story (and more) in the original video below:

The time he got into Ivan Reon

Let’s stay on the same topic and talk some other time Kit Harington hit an individual. As he himself admitted to Mashable, also in 2016, he accidentally punched fellow actor Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton) in the face not once, but twice, during the filming of the infamous Battle of the Bastards from season 6. Game of Thrones – The moment Jon Snow attacks the Boltons in front of Sansa (Sophie Turner).

“I actually hit Ivan twice in the face by accident, which he took very well“, he said. “He was really nice about it. After that I had to buy him a pint.“

It seems that Ivan Rheon For his part, he had a much more reasonable reaction than his character would have: “it was good”He joked. “The next day my jaw is a little sore, but, you know, that’s understandable.The actor later explained in an interview on the set of Conan O’Brien’s show that he even urged his co-star not to hold back.

Goes so far as to throw an enemy alive on the screen Kit Harington However, he explained that Jon Snow might have gone too far at that point.

“It’s a scary moment when you see that your hero has gone a little too far. Society must say: “Yes! Yes! Ramsay gets what he deserves! He always gets what he deserves, which is… well, stop. Can you stop now?’“

finally, Kit Harington and Jon Snow have a few things in common, and protecting the honor of their loved ones is one of them. We know Ramsey deserved it, a hundred times a thousand. And Jon wasn’t just defending Sansa’s dignity in that moment, he was avenging the death of his little brother Rickon (Art Parkinson) — as well as bringing justice to all those affected by the character’s despicable actions. And then, he won this battle and the whole world community applauded him.

Game of Thrones can be watched in its entirety on Prime Video with Warner Pass.