Kit Harington has stated that he doesn't care about what Game of Thrones critics think of the final season, saying that they can "go f**k themselves".

The star, who plays Jon Snow, admitted that he was "quite defiant" but pointed to the amount of work and dedication everyone on the show has contributed in making the highly-anticipated eighth season.

The season premiere, titled 'Winterfell', launched on Sunday night.

"How I feel about the show right now is quite defiant," he told Esquire. "I think no matter what anyone thinks about this season – and I don't mean to sound mean about critics here – but whatever critic spends half an hour writing about this season and makes their [negative] judgement on it, in my head they can go f**k themselves," he said.

"Because I know how much work was put into this. I know how much people cared about this.

"I know how much pressure people put on themselves and I know how many sleepless nights working or otherwise people had on this show. Because they cared about it so much. Because they cared about the characters. Because they cared about the story. Because they cared about not letting people down."

Helen Sloan HBO

Related: Game of Thrones' Gendry says season 7 lacked 'character' – but season 8 is 'perfect'

Harington continued by saying that nobody cares more about Game of Thrones than the people who work on the show.

"If people feel let down by [the final season], I don't give a f**k, because everyone tried their hardest," he said. "That's how I feel.

"In the end, no-one's bigger fans of the show than we are, and we're kind of doing it for ourselves. That's all we could do, really. And I was just happy we got to the end."

HBO

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The HBO drama enjoyed huge TV ratings for the season premiere, with 17.4 million people watching the first episode on Sunday night in the US.



Game of Thrones season 8 airs on HBO in the US and Sky Atlantic and NOW TV in the UK. Tune in to Digital Spy's Game of Thrones livestreams on Monday evenings, straight after each episode, on Instagram and Facebook.

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