Cameras Catch Sophie Turner and Kit Harington Gagging After ‘The Dreadful’ Kissing Scene
After spending nearly a decade playing brother and sister on one of television’s most-watched series, Sophie Turner and Kit Harington are reuniting on screen as lovers in a new Gothic horror film.
Behind-the-scenes footage shows the transition was rough: the two actors were seen gagging after an on-screen kiss.
Entertainment Tonight released the footage on Feb. 18, showing Turner and Harington filming one of their many on-screen kisses for The Dreadful.
The clip captures a kiss lasting about seven seconds, followed immediately by both actors “retching.”
The reaction tracks with what fans might expect.
Turner, now 29, played Sansa Stark on HBO’s Game of Thrones, which aired from 2011 to 2019. Harington played Jon Snow in the same series.
Their characters were raised as half-siblings — the children of Ned Stark — though Jon was later revealed to be the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, making them technically cousins.
What Is ‘The Dreadful’ About?
The Dreadful hits theaters and digital platforms on February 20.
The Gothic horror story is set in 15th-century England during the Wars of the Roses and follows Anne, played by Turner, and her mother-in-law, Morwen, played by Marcia Gay Harden, living in poverty-stricken isolation, per IMDb.
The plot kicks off when a man from their past, Jago (Harington), returns and disrupts their lives, setting off a tense, romantic and violent chain of events.
Natasha Kermani wrote and directed the film, which also stars Laurence O’Fuarain and Jonathan Howard. Turner serves as an executive producer.
How Kit Harington Ended Up In the Film
The behind-the-scenes footage arrived roughly six months after Turner first discussed the awkwardness of kissing her former on-screen sibling.
During an Aug. 15 appearance on “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” she told the story of recruiting Harington.
Turner, as executive producer, was asked if she had thoughts about who should star alongside her. She immediately thought of Harington.
“I sent the script to Kit,” she recalled. “He kind of sent me a message back, like, ‘Yeah, I’d love to, but this is gonna be really f***ing weird.’”
She said she didn’t know what he was talking about at first. Then she read the script and noticed how many intimate scenes the two characters shared.
“And then I’m like, ‘Oh shoot, that’s my brother,’” she told host Seth Meyers. “But it’s such a good script that he was like, ‘We kind of have to do it.’”
Sophie Turner’s ‘Worst’ Moment of Her Career
Turner was blunt about what happened once cameras started rolling.
“So, then we put it out our minds and then we get on set and it’s the first kissing scene. And we are both retching,” she said. “Like, really, it is vile. It was the worst — another really bad moment in my career.”
Harington shared his own perspective in a Nov. 17 interview with E! News.
“She was the one that sent that movie to me and somehow didn’t see what I saw in it. I was like, ‘These guys, these are lovers, right?’ I felt very odd about that. But it was a good chance to be with her again and work together,” he said.
“It was slightly embarrassing, having to get on an apple box to kiss her because she’s about a foot taller than me. But other than that, my dignity was pretty intact,” he added.
So while Turner didn’t initially register the romantic nature of the roles, Harington spotted it right away. For both, the quality of the script and the chance to work together again outweighed the discomfort.
A Very Awkward ‘Game of Thrones’ Reunion
Game of Thrones ran for eight seasons on HBO, and the bond between Sansa Stark and Jon Snow was a central thread in the show’s later seasons.
Now, nearly seven years since the finale, the two actors share the screen once more in The Dreadful — this time in a far darker, far more intimate story set against the backdrop of medieval England.
Whether viewers will be able to separate the actors from their beloved Game of Thrones characters remains an open question.
But if the gagging caught on camera is any indication, Turner and Harington themselves had the hardest time doing exactly that.
Production of this article included the use of AI. It was reviewed and edited by a team of content specialists.
