Kit Harington says that a crucial element of Jon Snow’s fate surprised and disappointed him in Game of Thrones season 6.

In a recent interview with The Wrap, Harington says that his expectations for Jon Snow’s return were different from the reality.

“I knew I was coming back to life,” he says, “but I didn’t know if I’d come back as a changed person, as a villain. So I couldn’t pre-plan anything, which was hard.”

Expecting major changes from Jon’s character, Harington admits to an initial disappointment when he read that “he comes back as himself, as the Jon that everyone knows.”

But given time to explore his character’s new incarnation, Harington says that Jon’s frame of mind is “more subtle than that.”

“He has an insight into what lies beyond that very few people in his world do, and that no one in our world does,” Harington says. “He knows that there’s no afterlife. Which does quietly drive who he is and what he wants to do.”

Resurrecting Jon Snow was also a more complicated business than the actor had anticipated. Though he says that his farewell speech to cast and crew at the end of season 5 “wasn’t convincing,” Kit Harington focused his deception on costar Sophie Turner — with whom he would share many crucial scenes in season 6.

“I let her in on the secret last of anyone, really, and she was so sweet,” he recalls. “She wrote me a letter about my leaving the show, and she bought that I wouldn’t be coming back. We’re all very pally with each other on our set, we’re like family, and she genuinely feels like a little sister to me. So I guess I kind of played tricks on her like an older brother would.”

The early days of Harington’s return, in the riveting role of Jon Snow’s corpse, were also unexpectedly challenging.

“I was on that flipping table,” he recalls. “I thought it would be quite nice just to have a couple of episodes lying down, but it was really frustrating. Everyone’s getting on with the job around you, and you just have to be still, and naked, for weeks.”

And though he describes the now-iconic gasp of resurrection as rather boring, Harington says that the ordeal of death, secrecy, and rebirth has its advantages.

“I feel like one of the safest people on Thrones now,” he observes. “Maybe I shouldn’t say that. [Jon] could die next season, but I felt very safe this season. Because if I come back to life in episode 2, it would be awful storytelling if you kill me in episode 4. So I felt a bit cocky this season.”

But as Game of Thrones enters its final act with two shortened seasons, the actor is aware that the mysteries surrounding Jon Snow and his parentage are more pressing than ever. Though the show explicitly revealed his mother to be Lyanna Stark, and heavily hinted at the identity of Jon’s father, Harington declines to share his own thoughts on the matter.

“If I say what my theory is, then some people will take it as gospel because I play the character,” he says. “And I also find it unhelpful in playing the character to theorize about it, because [Jon] doesn’t think too much about it.”

But, the actor adds, “If he gets to know that truth at some point, which I hope he will, it will be a really fascinating moment to play.”

Game of Thrones season 7 will air in 2017 on HBO.