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
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.
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.
automatic church exists feeling holiday love religious respect reverence sort
I love, when I'm on holiday in cities, going into church and feeling that reverence and that kind of automatic respect: the sort of magic which exists in those kind of religious temples.
I wanted to do a degree in something I was interested in before going into acting.
art religion rooted secular
We live in secular world now, but most of our art and culture is rooted in religion.
'Happy Valley' has really changed things for me.
crashed
I crashed my bicycle on the way to my first date with my ex-girlfriend and was cautioned by the police.
age grew life until
I grew up in the countryside, so I had quite a feral life up until the age of about fourteen.
distant great
For any actor, it's a great privilege to play a character that is very distant from yourself.
buying convinced fit men problem senseless sold stop time vintage
For a long time I had a vintage stall, where I sold men's vintage clothing, and my girlfriend was convinced it was just to do with a problem I had where I just couldn't stop buying senseless clothes, even if they didn't fit me.
asking courage good musician people takes
It takes a lot of courage, when everyone is asking you what you want to do, if you say that you want to be a musician or an actor; people can be very condescending and say, 'Oh, that's so sweet, good luck with that!' It can be very frustrating.
playing
When I was playing a psychopath in 'Happy Valley,' it was really weird.
When I got into drama school, that's when I knew that I could safely say that I wanted to be a professional actor.
character field playing time
You don't want a character who sits on an even playing field the whole time.