His amazing portrayal of fan-favorite Jon Snow on HBO’s Game of Thrones has launched British actor Kit Harington to instant stardom. Despite his newly acquired status as one of Hollywood’s hottest actors, his May interview with Rolling Stone revealed that Harington has not let fame or success change him and that he still sees a lot of himself in his ambitious and brooding Thrones character.

Harington graduated from London’s Royal Central School of Speech and Drama a mere five years ago, and was first noticed by Game of Thrones creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff during a stage adaptation of War Horse, in which he played a country boy in love with a horse. Weiss told Rolling Stone that at his audition for the show, he recalls having thought, “This is what Jon Snow looks like,” and whispering to Benioff, “Please let this kid be good.” Luckily for the creators, he was.

“It wasn’t a studied thing – some kind of actor who practices brooding in the mirror – it was a capacity to say a lot without saying a lot,” said Benioff.

His training for Thrones and his last film Pompeii required three-hour daily workouts, an exhausting regiment which nearly paralyzed him for a moment on the Pompeii set in Toronto.

“I was in my trailer, and I felt absolutely fine, but they called me to set, I got up, and my legs just went from underneath me, and I fucking couldn’t stand,” says Harington, hydrating with cheese crackers. We’re halfway up the hill. “Every time I got up, the same thing happened. I just stayed in bed for 48 hours and then I was at work again. But it’s weird when that happens.”

His hard work over the past few years has certainly paid off, with fans and critics alike praising his portrayal of Snow, but Harington’s ambitious nature keeps him wanting more.

“Snow’s a black sheep. The thing that drives both of us is more similar than you might think – he’s driven by ambition. I’ve always been very ambitious too. Snow is a good person who believes in what he’s doing, but that’s the struggle: balancing duty with ambition. That’s how I feel about my life. I’m very ambitious, but how do I balance that with not fucking other people up around me?”

Another similarity between the actor and his Thrones character is their desire for privacy. Harington refuses to address whether he has a girlfriend or rumors that the Haringtons are direct descendants of King Charles II.

“I don’t do Twitter because I don’t want to talk about myself more than I already have to,” said Harington. “I don’t want people thinking they know me instead of the character. Steve McQueen has loads of stories about him – who knows what’s true? But it’s great for people to fictionalize rather than know the truth.”

While he loves his time on Game of Thrones, Harington admits that he wishes he had time to do more theater. Characters on the show die off all the time, but there’s the possibility that he could be playing Snow for another five-plus years. Once Thrones is over, Harington hopes to change up the type of roles he takes and prove to the world – and to himself – that he is more than just this one popular character.

“I told my agent, ‘No more swords, no more horses,'” he said. “You can get stuck in things. And maybe I can cut my fucking hair.”