Actor Kit Harington has said he is “very happy” and “content” after overcoming problems with alcohol and depression.
The Game Of Thrones star told The Sunday Times he is now sober after making a “huge fundamental change in who I was and how I went about my life”.
Earlier this year, the 34-year-old became a parent for the first time when his wife actress Rose Leslie gave birth to a son.
Harington told the newspaper: “I have a child and my relationship is brilliant.
“I’m a very, very happy, content, sober man.”
However, he added: “Things that have happened to me since Thrones ended, and that were happening during Thrones, were of a pretty traumatic nature and they did include alcohol.”
He told the newspaper he had previously felt suicidal, adding: “I went through periods of real depression where I wanted to do all sorts of things.”
He said he felt like a “bad” and “shameful” person: “And you feel that there’s no way out, that’s just who you are.
“And getting sober is the process of going, ‘No, I can change’.
“One of my favourite things I learnt recently is that the expression ‘a leopard doesn’t change its spots’ is completely false: that a leopard actually does change its spots.
“I just think that’s the most beautiful thing. It really helped.
“That was something I kind of clung to; the idea that I could make this huge fundamental change in who I was and how I went about my life.”
Harington described being a father as “the most physically draining thing”.
“My hat goes off to any single parent,” he said.
“Any single parent, you’re a f****** genius. I don’t know how you do it.
“Because it’s more exhausting than everything I did on Thrones.”
