Exclusive: Kit Harington talks 'ambitious' 'Game of Thrones' season 7
The new season begins on July 16.
— -- The wait is over -- winter is [almost] here!
Fans will still have to hang on for a few more months before "Game of Thrones" returns for season 7. The show announced Thursday via Facebook live that the return date is July 16.
Shortly after the big reveal, Kit Harington spoke to ABC News about the new season, calling it "much grander" than anything fans have seen before.
"[Season 7 has] so much more ambition," he said while promoting his new film "Brimstone" out in theaters tomorrow. "There are less episodes this year, so they spent more money on those episodes. So, the whole scale of it is up."
The new season will have 7 episodes instead of the usual 10.
In fact, Harington, who plays the incomparable Jon Snow, touched on the final two seasons, 7 and 8, and said he wants to see the show go out "with a bang."
"That has to happen at the end of 'Thrones,' this season and next season," he said. "It has to go into places TV hasn't been."
As for how fans will receive the highly-anticipated comeback after last year's big reveal that Harington's Snow had come back from the dead, he admits he's always surprised at the positive reactions from the "Thrones" masses.
"I'm such a big cynic, I film a scene and [think] it's gonna be a terrible scene," he said. "Then when everyone loves it, I'm happy."
With the big release date earlier in the day, fans literally helped the show melt a block of ice by typing "fire" into the comments to reveal the date. There were more than 100,000 fans on the stream right after it began and millions of views by the time the July 16 date had thawed out.
Viewers left off at the end of season 6 with Emilia Clarke's Daenerys in search of the Iron Throne, while Lena Headey's Cersei had just pulled off one of the most sinister revenge plots in history, reclaiming the top spot in Westeros. And then there's also Snow, who should play a big part in the mix of things.