Kit Harington on Belfast: “It’s wonderful for two or three days…”

As I said of similar comments by HBO’s Michael Lombardo last year,

With so much of some Northern Ireland Executive ministers‘ time and effort [and other people’s money! – Ed] focused on exploiting the international success of HBO’s Game of Thrones to promote Northern Ireland overseas, it’s perhaps unfortunate, but refreshing, that HBO’s director of programming, Michael Lombardo, has given an honest answer to a straight question…

This time, it’s one of the leading actors from HBO’s Game of Thrones, Kit Harington, telling it straight.  As the Belfast Telegraph reports

[The interviewer,  Seth Meyers] said: “One thing that doesn’t seem fair or exciting for you is there are a lot of incredible locations for this show, Croatia, Spain this year. Your part isn’t in the nice places. You spent a lot of time in Belfast.

To which Harington replies: “A lot of time in Belfast.”

He is then quizzed on what he would say to a traveller going to Belfast.

He replies: “It’s wonderful for two or three days.”

[Seth Meyers: “And you’ve been there for years.”

Harington: “Five years.”] [added quotes]

But says that he has been living here for five years and describes it as having a “wonderfully, depressing tourist board.”

“I have to be careful what I say”, he adds.

[Seth Meyers: “I wouldn’t worry about people from Belfast”.]

He said: “They have a wonderful tourist board, they celebrate three things. Having the most bombed hotel in Europe, which is great.

“They built the Tiitanic which is a ship that sunk on its maiden voyage and now they have Game of Thrones, the most depressing TV show in history.

“So it’s a wonderfully, depressing Tourist Board” [added emphasis throughout]

Heh.

And we have video…

YouTube video

Or, as Boswell reported Samuel Johnson to have said in the 18th Century,

BOSWELL. “Is not the Giant’s-Causeway worth seeing?” JOHNSON. “Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.” [added emphasis]


Discover more from Slugger O'Toole

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.