Kit Harington Calls Sex Scene With Sophie Turner “Gross”

Kit Harington said filming sex scenes with Sophie Turner for The Dreadful felt “gross,” despite the two longtime co-stars now starring as lovers in Turner’s gothic horror film.

Kit Harington didn’t sugarcoat it. When he and Sophie Turner had to film sex scenes together for their gothic horror movie The Dreadful, he called the experience “gross.”

The 39-year-old actor—who worked with Turner from the start of Game of Thrones—shared the reaction in a recent interview with fellow Thrones star Peter Dinklage for CNN’s Actors on Actors.

Harington and Turner, now 39 and 30 respectively, essentially grew up on the same set. They played Jon Snow and Sansa Stark on the hit HBO series, where their characters were believed to be siblings for most of the show—until it was revealed they were actually first cousins.

That history made the dynamic awkward when Turner asked Harington to portray her lover in The Dreadful, a film she produced and starred in. In the movie, Harington plays a sinister stranger who reemerges in the lives of Anne and her mother-in-law Morwen.

Harington said Turner sent him the script and told him what was coming. “She sent me the script and I said, ‘Sophie, there’s a lot of us getting it on,’” he recalled. “She hadn’t seen that. She just said, ‘Yeah, Kit would be good for this part.”

Even with the role in front of him, Harington initially hesitated. He said he has known Turner “since she was a child,” and that he thinks of her as “a younger sister.”

“We did it. It was gross but it was fine,” he insisted. “She’s an amazing actor. I know we all know that but she was a child when she [started on Game of Thrones]. She is phenomenal!”

Turner has described feeling similar dread about the shooting process. During an appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers last year, she said she was horrified at the thought of filming love scenes in the first place.

“I’d just got the script for this amazing gothic horror called The Dreadful, and I was reading through all the characters,” Turner explained to host Seth Meyers. “And I’m producing it, so the director was asking me, ‘Who do you think?’ And immediately, the first person I thought of was Kit.”

She said she then sent the script to Harington, only to receive a message back that made her pause. “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 it. and I’m like. ‘Kiss. kiss. sex. kiss. sex scene.’ And then I’m like. oh shoot. that’s my brother. But it’s such a good script that he’s like, ‘We kind of have to do it.’”.

In the months leading up to release, Turner said the situation didn’t magically get easier once filming began. She joked that even a strong script couldn’t prevent the awkwardness.

“We put it out of our minds, and then we get on set, and it’s the first kissing scene,” she recalled. “And we are both retching, like really, it is vile. It was the worst, another really bad moment in my career.”

The Dreadful was released in February.

Kit Harington Sophie Turner The Dreadful Game of Thrones Jon Snow Sansa Stark Actors on Actors Peter Dinklage Late Night With Seth Meyers gothic horror intimacy sex scenes