'Game of Thrones' star Kit Harington lied to costars to keep the Jon Snow reveal secret

The Jon Snow cover-up keeps getting deeper and deeper. Kit Harington said he even had to convince his "Game of Thrones" costars that he was leaving the show.

After scripts went out containing Jon Snow's death scene while shooting the show's fifth season in 2014, the producers told Harington that he would actually be revived two episodes into season six. But they also asked the actor to keep the plot twist from the other cast members and the crew.

"At first I thought I would find it fun," Harington told Entertainment Weekly. "'This will be a fun game.' But I had to lie to a lot of close friends and cast members and crew. The longer it went, the more I felt like I was betraying them. So I did end up letting people in, slowly."

The actor said that results were mixed. Liam Cunningham, who plays Ser Davos, for example, couldn't be fooled.

"[Liam Cunningham] told me to f--- off from the start," Harington said.

And some were totally hoodwinked, such as Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark.

"Sophie Turner, bless her, wrote me a really long letter about how much she loved working with me - and I still got it," Harington recalled. "That made me chuckle."

By the time shooting on the sixth season began, the cast was filled in on Jon Snow's resurrection.

Lying to cast mates was just part of the intense cover-up to keep Jon Snow's storyline a secret. Harington and his cast mates only referred to his character with a codename, were sworn to secrecy by show producers, and were asked to pretend that the actor was done with the show when speaking publicly or to media. The conspiracy went all the way to the top levels of HBO, as executives covered up up the storyline, too.

For his part in the scheme, Harington apologized to fans.

"Sorry! I'd like to say sorry for lying to everyone," he said.

As fans discovered on Sunday's episode, the long-debated question as to whether Jon Snow would be resurrected was finally answered. After Melisandre (Carice van Houten) performed a spell to bring him back, Jon Snow opened his eyes and inhaled the first breath of his second life.