James Norton
James Norton
James Geoffrey Ian Nortonis an English actor. He is best known for roles in the British TV series Happy Valley, Grantchester and War & Peace. For his role as ex-convict Tommy Lee Royce in Happy Valley, Norton was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2015...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth18 July 1985
CityLondon, England
crashed
I crashed my bicycle on the way to my first date with my ex-girlfriend and was cautioned by the police.
Half of what creates psychopaths is genetic, but the other half is conditioning.
bay dads force kids round sit
Kids used to come round to my house, and I'd force them to do a play in the bay windows of my house and get all the mums and dads to sit and watch. I'd write the programme, write the play and be the star.
guilt sunny swim weird
If it's a sunny day, I get this weird guilt if I'm not making the most of it, so I'll walk or go for a swim or get on my bike, or I'll go to the Heath, just have a reason to get out.
age bug
I had the acting bug from a very early age.
grew home north
I grew up in North Yorkshire, but now London is home.
characters compare fantasy next remote shocking
If you compare the violence in 'Happy Valley' to the violence in something like 'Game of Thrones,' it's nothing. But it is shocking because it's so real and grounded. The characters could live next door to you - they're not in a remote fantasy world.
Being in a person's head for five months, where they're so hateful, is kind of exhausting.
character judging cynical
If you're constantly stepping outside of the character and judging them, you'll never really be able to fully engage because you'll always be slightly cynical.
stars thinking actors
Every day, every scene, you were like, "My god. I'm doing a scene with Brian Cox today and then I'm onto a scene with Stephen Rea." For us young actors, I think we were all very, very star-struck and impressed by the caliber of everyone who came out.
summer falling-in-love jobs
The Russians were all really accommodating, and that made it really special. To be allowed in Catherine's Summer Palace...Lily [James] and I have this scene where we fall in love and we waltz up and down this enormous gold hall with thousands of candles and a live orchestra and 300 Russian extras. To do those scenes in situ really meant it was a once-in-a-lifetime job.
character trying spend-time
You really try to work the character out and spend time in the headspace of the character. That's what I did.
falling-in-love military war
There's so much going on in Andrei [Bolkonsky]. He's wrangling with these big existential conundrums, and he tries out different routes to fulfillment. He tries falling in love, that doesn't work. He goes to war and searches for military glory, that doesn't work. He does the quiet life of a farmer. He's always active. That's what I loved about him, he's always looking, searching. He's really inquisitive.
thinking people want
As an actor, I think most people have a tendency to want to demonstrate that they can act, they can emote.