Kit Harington - Biography (video)

Synopsis

Kit Harington studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama at the University of London. Soon after graduating in 2008, he starred in the London production of War Horse. Harington had his first hit statewide with the debut of the popular fantasy series Game of Thrones in 2011. He played Jon Snow, a warrior and illegitimate son of Lord Eddard Stark, on the show for five seasons.

Early Life and Education

Born Christopher Catesby Harington on December 26, 1986, in London, the actor Kit Harington is best known for playing Jon Snow on the hit HBO series Game of Thrones. He grew up in London and then moved to Worcester around the age of 11. Around this time, Harington made an important discovery. He told CNN that he learned that his first name was only a nickname. "I went to school, you do these exams and I put down Kit Harington and the teacher said, 'That's not your name,' and I said, 'Yeah I think I'd know my own name!' They were like, "No no your name is Christopher." I was a bit pissed off with my mum."

Harington first dreamed of taking up another career growing up. As he told Variety, "I always thought I would be a journalist, and never really saw acting as a career, only as a hobby." He changed his tune when he was admitted to the Central School of Speech and Drama at the University of London. Harrington explained to Back Stage that "getting into the so-called top drama schools in London is very, very difficult."

'Game of Thrones'

After graduating in 2008, Harington landed his first major role on the London stage. He played a young man who follows his beloved animal into combat in the drama War Horse. After War Horse, Harington soon auditioned for his most famous part to date. He looked a little rough around the edges when he first tried out for Jon Snow, the bastard son of Lord Eddard Stark, on Game of Thrones. Harington told the Daily Mail that "I had a black eye as I'd been in a scrap. But I think it might have helped. You know, 'Who's the kid with the black eye?'"Once he won the part, Harington asked to change his look after shooting the show's pilot episode. The producers asked him to grow his hair and a beard and skip shampoo to make him "look a bit dirtier and grubbier and more visceral," he told CNN.

Based on the fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones debuted in 2011 and quickly developed a strong following. Harington explained the show's success to GQ. "I think people like Game of Thrones because people respond to not being treated like idiots. It's a really complex story, and it's very hard to follow, and people love working that puzzle out." It also probably helps that "it's rollicking good story with sex and violence."

In 2015, Game of Thrones fans (and Harington) received a nasty shock—warrior Jon Snow seemingly met his end at the conclusion of the show's fifth season. While some viewers may still be in denial, Harington insisted to Entertainment Weekly that there will be no resurrection of his character. "I’ve been told I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m not coming back next season." But come back he did, and in 2016 he received his first Emmy nomination for his work on the show.

Beyond Westeros

While working on Game of Thrones, Harington found time for other projects. He starred in the historical action-adventure Pompeii (2014) with Carrie-Anne Moss and Kiefer Sutherland and in Vera Brittain's autobiographical war drama Testament of Youth (2014) with Alicia Vikanderand Emily Watson.  The following year saw Harington in a new comedic light when he starred opposite Andy Samberg in the 2015 HBO tennis mockumentary 7 Days in Hell.

Harington is set to appear in the upcoming dramatic film Brimstone with Dakota Fanning and Guy Pearce.

Madonna's Full Acceptance Speech at Billboard Women In Music 2016

Madonna a global icon who extended her record as the highest-grossing female touring artist of all time in 2016 -- was honored as Woman of the Year at Billboard's Women In Music 2016 event on Friday (Dec. 9). And during her acceptance speech, she was fully ferocious, funny and brutally honest -- in other words, she was the Madonna we've known and adored since she debuted more than 30 years ago. 

Madonna, unsurprisingly, stole the show the moment she took the stage. Her weapon? Something you can't contain, fake, reproduce or put a price on: Blunt, personal truth.

After opening with a joke -- "I always feel better with something hard between my legs" Madonna said, straddling the microphone stand -- she got candid very quickly.

"I stand before you as a doormat. Oh, I mean, as a female entertainer," Madonna said. "Thank you for acknowledging my ability to continue my career for 34 years in the face of blatant sexism and misogyny and constant bullying and relentless abuse."

Madonna's sprawling, revealing speech took us back to her life as a teenager when she first moved to New York.

"People were dying of AIDS everywhere. It wasn’t safe to be gay, it wasn’t cool to be associated with the gay community," Madonna recalled. "It was 1979 and New York was a very scary place. In the first year I was held at gunpoint, raped on a rooftop with a knife digging into my throat and I had my apartment broken into and robbed so many times I stopped locking the door. In the years that followed, I lost almost every friend I had to AIDS or drugs or gunshots."

From that, Madonna told the Women In Music crowd she learned a vital lesson: "In life there is no real safety except for self-belief."

Madonna also talked about a lesson she thought she learned from David Bowie... only that lesson, it turned out, didn't quite apply to her. "I was of course inspired by Debbie Harry and Chrissie Hynde and Aretha Franklin, but my real muse was David Bowie. He embodied male and female spirit and that suited me just fine. He made me think there were no rules. But I was wrong. There are no rules -- if you're a boy. There are rules if you're a girl," Madonna said. 

Among those rules: "If you're a girl, you have to play the game. You're allowed to be pretty and cute and sexy. But don’t act too smart. Don’t have an opinion that's out of line with the status quo. You are allowed to be objectified by men and dress like a slut, but don’t own your sluttiness. And do not, I repeat do not, share your own sexual fantasies with the world. Be what men want you to be, but more importantly, be what women feel comfortable with you being around other men. And finally, do not age. Because to age is a sin. You will be criticized and vilified and definitely not played on the radio."

Madonna also opened up about the time in her life when she felt "like the most hated person on the planet," with her eyes tearing up and her nose running a bit. 

"Eventually I was left alone because I married Sean Penn, and not only would he would bust a cap in your ass, but I was off the market. For a while I was not considered a threat. Years later, divorced and single -- sorry Sean -- I made my Erotica album and my Sex book was released. I remember being the headline of every newspaper and magazine. Everything I read about myself was damning. I was called a whore and a witch. One headline compared me to Satan. I said, 'Wait a minute, isn't Prince running around with fishnets and high heels and lipstick with his butt hanging out?' Yes, he was. But he was a man.

"This was the first time I truly understood women do not have the same freedom as men," she said.

Madonna also recalled that at one point in her life, during all the public vitriol, "I remember wishing I had a female peer I could look to for support. Camille Paglia, the famous feminist writer, said I set women back by objectifying myself sexually. So I thought, 'oh, if you're a feminist, you don't have sexuality, you deny it.' So I said 'fuck it. I'm a different kind of feminist. I'm a bad feminist.'"

Madonna also looked back on the many pop icons lost during the last decade. "I think the most controversial thing I have ever done is to stick around. Michael is gone. Tupac is gone. Prince is gone. Whitney is gone. Amy Winehouse is gone. David Bowie is gone. But I'm still standing. I'm one of the lucky ones and every day I count my blessings."

Closing out her speech, Madonna offered thanks to her haters and advice to other women in music.

"What I would like to say to all women here today is this: Women have been so oppressed for so long they believe what men have to say about them. They believe they have to back a man to get the job done. And there are some very good men worth backing, but not because they're men -- because they're worthy. As women, we have to start appreciating our own worth and each other's worth. Seek out strong women to befriend, to align yourself with, to learn from, to collaborate with, to be inspired by, to support, and enlightened by," she urged. 

"It's not so much about receiving this award as it is having this opportunity to stand before you and say thank you," Madonna said, closing out her speech. "Not only to the people who have loved and supported me along the way, you have no idea...you have no idea how much your support means," she said, tearing up for the second time. "But to the doubters and naysayers and everyone who gave me hell and said I could not, that I would not or I must not -- your resistance made me stronger, made me push harder, made me the fighter that I am today. It made me the woman that I am today. So thank you."

Before the speech, Anderson Cooper introduced Madonna with a heartfelt tribute to her ongoing influence. "Madonna is Billboard's Woman of the Year, but as far as I'm concerned in terms of music and impact and culture, she's been the Woman of the Year every year since she released her first single 'Everybody' in 1982."

Hailing her as not only "relevant but revolutionary" up to present day, Cooper noted the importance of Madonna to him "as a gay teenager growing up… Her music and outspokenness showed me as a teenager a way forward. Through her music, she told me and millions of teenagers -- gay and straight -- that we are not alone. We are connected to each other."

Following Cooper's personal tribute, rising British singer-songwriter Labrinth took the stage for a stirring medley of Madonna's Ray of Light ballad "Frozen" and her immortal "Like A Prayer." Naturally, a choir was brought onstage to recreate the church-meets-pop anthem ecstasy of "Like a Prayer."

George Michael: life in pictures | A look back at the life of the singer

• BBC
  Singer George Michael has died aged 53. He shot to fame in the 1980s pop duo Wham! and became one of the most successful and beloved pop stars of his era.
• GETTY IMAGES
  Michael and Andrew Ridgeley formed Wham! after meeting at school. They had two number one albums and their hit singles included Last Christmas, Club Tropicana and Wake Me Up Before You Go Go.
• PA
  Michael launched his solo career in 1984 with the song Careless Whisper, which was a global hit and became one of his signature tunes. He and Ridgeley were also among the performers at Live Aid in 1985.
• AP
  Michael (far left) joined the Live Aid finale at Wembley Stadium alongside (left-right) promoter Harvey Goldsmith, Bono, Paul McCartney, Bob Geldof and Freddie Mercury.
• AP
  During his career, Michael had huge success collaborating with stars including Aretha Franklin (pictured), Elton John, Queen and Mary J Blige. His duet with Franklin, I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me), went to number one on both sides of the Atlantic.
• AP
  After Wham!, Michael's solo career truly took off with numerous awards and number one hits including Faith, Jesus To A Child and Fastlove.
• PA
  His famous fans included Diana, Princess of Wales, and the pair became friends. After the princess's death in 1997, Michael attended her funeral.
• GETTY IMAGES
  Following the success of the 1980s and early 1990s, Michael's life and image became dogged by trauma and controversy. In 1997, he was arrested for a sex act in a Los Angeles public toilet, which led to him publicly admitting he was gay.
• AFP
  Michael was devastated when his long-term partner Anselmo Feleppa died of a brain haemorrhage in 1993. Three years later, he met Kenny Goss (pictured) and they remained together until 2009.
• BBC
  In 2007, he poked fun at himself by appearing in Ricky Gervais's series Extras. He played himself, telling Gervais's character Andy Millman that he was serving community service for fly-tipping with Annie Lennox.
• GETTY IMAGES
  The star had medical issues in recent years, including pneumonia that required a month-long stay in a Vienna hospital in 2011.
• REUTERS
  Michael's last tour was in 2012, following an appearance at the London 2012 Olympics closing ceremony (pictured). It had been reported before his death that the star had been working on a new album, 12 years after his last studio release.
•