Game of Thrones season 6: Jon Snow actor Kit Harington forced to confront 'worst fear' to film Battle of the Bastards

Director Miguel Sapochnik 'exploited his fear of being buried alive to the fullest'

Kit Harington was nearly trampled by his own men in a gripping moment of episode nine

It was Game of Thrones’ most brutal battle yet, but none of the cast hated filming the Battle of the Bastards as much as Jon Snow actor Kit Harington.

Episode director Miguel Sapochnik has revealed that the 29-year-old is terrified about being buried alive, so wasn’t exactly relishing the thought of being trampled on by a panicking ton of his own muddied wildlings.

“Kit had mentioned to me that his worst fear is being buried alive,” Sapochnik told The Hollywood Reporter. “So I exploited that to its fullest - and being the amazing game player that he is, he let me.”

The scene that nearly saw Jon Snow smothered was added in unscripted last-minute by Sapochnik, making the sequence, which took a gruelling 25 days to shoot, even more nightmarish for Harington.

One moment involved Harington being trapped under a fake horse corpse with just one stunt man lying on top of him. “We ran 250 allied troop extras over him,” Sapochnik said, adding that someone was on hand to “pull him out if things got hairy”.

Harington has had plenty of experience on the Thrones battlefield, most memorably in episode eight of season five, “Hardhome”, but that didn’t stop him from accidentally punching co-star Iwan Rheon, who plays the villainous Ramsay Bolton, in the face during shooting. “He was really nice about it, I had to buy him a pint after that one,” he said.

The dramatic penultimate episode of season six saw Bolton killed off after Jon Snow confronted him at Winterfell.

Game of Thrones concludes on Sky Atlantic at 2am on Sunday night, with a repeat at 9pm on Monday.