HOMEGROWN star Kit Harington is swapping the bloody fantasy word of Game of Thrones for the bloody reality of the trenches and a tale of doomed love during the First World War.

The 28-year-old actor, who calls 'wonderful' Worcester home and has been known to frequent Heroes in the city's Friar Street and the Old Rectifying House in North Parade, has earned a legion of fans for his dynamic performance as swashbuckling Jon Snow.

The actor who plays the brooding illegitimate son of a northern lord must defend a giant wall of ice, based on the Roman Wall, from savage wildlings to the north and even armies of the living dead as a sworn brother of the dwindling and beleaguered Night's Watch.

The former Chantry in Martley and Worcester Sixth Form College pupil and Worcester Warriors fan who moved to Worcestershire at the age of 11 has become something of a pin-up thanks to his model good looks and luxurious dark locks.

But he has to be shorn of some of his abundant mane as he swaps fantasy for harsh reality in touching First World War movie Testament Of Youth.

In a bustling hotel corridor, crammed with staff, publicists, directors and journalists, all talk has turned to actor Kit Harington's new hair.

It may only be a few inches shorter, but for this lot - and indeed the throng of Game Of Thrones fans who are used to the actor's curly locks tickling his shoulders - the new style is causing many double takes.

"It's for Testament Of Youth, mate," he exclaims, laughing, as the film's director James Kent comments on the new look.

And it's for Testament Of Youth that the London-born actor is here today, promoting the movie before its release this month.

Not only does he look different, with slicked back hair, in the adaptation of Vera Brittain's timely memoir of loss and friendship during the First World War, but the role itself is firmly rooted in reality, a considerable sidestep from the fantasy TV series he is most associated with.

In the film, Harington plays Roland Leighton, Brittain's idealistic young fiance whose death in the trenches had a profound impact on her life.

"It was an opportunity to play a real-life character, of which there was reams of research that had been done," said the 28-year-old, who studied the bestselling 1933 book at school in Worcester, where his family moved to from London when he was a child.

"I had a book about his most personal thoughts, and that's not something you get [with most characters]. That's a very rare thing, to be playing someone like that."

But it wasn't without problems.

"With the next thing I did, I went into it expecting that and went, 'Oh no, I've got to think - I've got to invent all of that again!'" he said with a chuckle. "But I loved it. I'd love to play a historical figure again."

While Harington is urging people to read up on Brittain and Leighton's letters ("The really moving bit is that they just stop one day... that made me break down"), he doesn't think Game Of Thrones fans will need much encouragement to see the film.

"Young people today have more inclination to learn about the First World War than people give them credit for," he explains.

"I certainly was nigh on obsessed with it when I was young. I don't think it was a morbid fascination with how they died, but it was more that these men were my age when I was learning about them.

"I think it's the greatest reminder to us all of the consequence of war, and how it can wipe out an entire generation of men, and in this day and age, women too."

While "harrowing" and "hard to watch for the right reasons", the role offered a change for Harington.

Since his breakthrough role in Game Of Thrones back in 2011, he has starred in action film Pompeii, voiced a part in How To Train Your Dragon 2, and will soon be seen in the upcoming Susan Sarandon film The Death And Life Of John F. Donovan and the Spooks movie.

"Last year was one of those years where I spent a long time as a gladiator or a warrior, or a man with a sword," he explains. "And I said to all my agents and team, 'I need to do something which is a bit more modern, which steps me into a place where I've got more room for character development', and this definitely did that."

He admits he's becoming more selective.

"I'm getting pickier with projects now, which is strange," he says.

"So far, it's been work, work, work. Do anything. And now it has to really show me something that I haven't done before. That's very broad, but I like the idea of characters with slowly twistable coils in them that get tighter and tighter and tighter and then they break.

"This wasn't that, but I like the idea of playing someone like that."

And with the popularity of Game Of Thrones throwing up more opportunities, as well as international fame, Harington enjoyed having time back at his family's home to "be a kid again" over Christmas, and take stock.

"I'm always blessed and happy that I've been able to work as an actor," he says. "And I'm learning to enjoy it more.

"It was always terrifying in the first few years of having actually got a job, and thinking, 'This is going to disappear at any minute'. Now I'm leaning to sit back and enjoy the work." HBO's hit TV show, Game of Thrones returns in April for a fifth season.