Kit Harington moved into directing because he had a “growing need” to step behind the camera.
The Game of Thrones star has taken charge of his first movie project, a short film called Psychopomp which debuted at the Raindance Film Festival in London this month – and he’s now explained he tackled the project after he decided to follow his “instinct.”
Kit told Variety, “I’d be on set as an actor and thinking about how I would shoot a scene, what notes I would give to an actor. You can’t suggest a shot to a director or give a note to another actor on set, and [that] was a growing need I was feeling that told me that I had to make my own thing to see if that instinct was the right one to follow.”
The short film revolves around a desperate man named Harry, played by Harry Melling and hired assassin Liam, played by Ciaran Owens, as they take a road trip together and Kit explained it tackles themes of “male depression, male friendship [and] male vulnerability”.
“There is only so much dinner table chat you can personally handle before you need to explore it in a different way as a creative,” Kit added.
The Eternals star said of shooting the first scene with the actors, “I slightly freaked out as they played the scene and they were perfect.”
“It was a real joy to actually just watch actors do what they do from a completely different angle and admire them. Sounds odd but it was the first time I really realized what an amazing craft it is. It took seeing it from the outside in,” Kit Harington explained as he viewed acting from the eyes of a director.
