JAMES NORTON
British actor James Norton made his on-screen debut the ITV drama Flesh and Blood in 2010, before going on to perform
an array of television series, films and West-End productions. He gained critic's and viewers' recognition for his role in the BBC series Happy Valley (2014), where he played a complex serial offender, and his role as Andrei Bolkonsky in War and Peace (2016). Born in London, Norton was educated at a boarding school in North Yorkshire before studying at London's prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
Set to star this March as main character Jude in Ivo van Hove's West End depiction
of A Little Life, based on the notoriously difficult-to-read novel of the same name by Hanya Yanagihara, Norton sat down with Crash to talk about his preparation for the role and self-care as an actor when portraying such socially complex issues. In an exclusive story by Magnum Photos photographer, Olivia Arthur, he is photographed here wearing the Dior Men Spring/Summer 2023 collection by Kim Jones.
INTERVIEW ROISIN BREEN
ROISIN BREEN CAN YOU TALK TO US ABOUT YOUR EDUCATION AND HOW YOU FOUND YOUR PATH INTO ACTING?
JAMES NORTON I always loved acting. I don't know why because I don't come from a family of actors and none of my relatives have been in the industry. It kind of came out of nowhere, but from a very young age I really loved theater. I guess like a lot of kids I loved make believe and cops and robbers and I really took it to the next level: I would write little plays for my friends and I would force them to perform them (laughs). I even made sure everyone had real costumes. So I definitely had the bug from a very early age. I was always desperate to play Joseph in the school nativity.
When I went to university, I was very lucky to get into Cambridge and there's an amazing theater scene there: lots of very historic, iconic societies such as Footlights and The Marlowe Society. It was during my time at university where I got the confidence to take it to the next level and apply to drama school. And suddenly the hobby became a career, or at least the beginning of a career.
RB DID YOU HAVE ANY FORMAL ACTING TRAINING?
JN Yes, I went to RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) after Cambridge, where you're allowed to start auditioning for professional jobs halfway through your first year. I had my first audition for a professional job around February
of the first year, which was the earliest I was allowed to start. So it turned out that the first day I had permission to audition for roles, I actually got my first offer, which was for a role in a play called Posh at the Royal Court. It was an amazing opportunity, but the heads at RADA were quite reluctant about the idea. But I decided to do it anyway because it felt like the right thing to do.
RB CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR TIME THERE?
JN I loved it, I had a great three years there. It really helped having been to university beforehand because it gave me a certain level of discernment. I was able to pick and choose what worked for me and what I didn't need, whereas some people seemed to get a little overwhelmed because there's a lot to digest. It was an incredible opportunity. We had incredible alumni of the school - actors, directors, writers - always in and out of the school, it was amazing. The most important thing it gave me was the confidence to enter into
the audition rooms and feel like I was worthy of being there, which is what you need at the beginning of your career. You can't second guess yourself or doubt your right to be there. And most of all, it was really fun! We were just doing what we love with all the sense of anticipation and hope for a future in which we might get paid for doing what we love. It was a very hopeful time.
RB CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR LIFE OUTSIDE OF ACTING? JN
That was all before I went to RADA. Then of course when you're starting out as an actor, you do have to carry on with other jobs on the side. I think that part of being "good at the acting thing" is figuring out what to do with your downtime.
The time spent on a film set or on the stage of a theater is the part where you are doing what you love. It's kind of the easy bit. The hard part is waiting for the gigs to come along, twiddling your thumbs and staying sane. So keeping financially afloat (laughs) - but also in a bid to protect my mental state - meant that I filled my spare time with countless side jobs whilst studying and early on in my career. I've been everything! (laughs) I was a sailing instructor for a while, a manual laborer, I worked in a mobile phone gambling company in the customer services department for a bit. The main thing I did was children's parties. I used to organize and run them on behalf of the company I worked for. There were all kinds of birthday parties for kids between the ages of four and ten, with around forty to one hundred of them at a time. I wasn't a clown though. I think because I'm an actor everyone assumed that I was a clown, but I had jeans and t-shirt, a bag full of sweets and a parachute and some balloons. I would play loads of games with them and basically spend two hours getting them as high as I could on sugar and then give them back to their parents for the crash after. (laughs) It was fun. It was good work because there was a lot of running around and chatting, and the fact that it was always on the weekend meant that I could go and audition during the week. Once I noticed that the age of the parents was getting closer and closer to mine, I realized that at some point I was going to have to extricate myself from the game of kids' parties. (laughs) And luckily that's the point at which the film and TV stuff started to take off.
RB I IMAGINE THAT WORKING WITH KIDS LIKE THAT CAN PREPARE YOU FOR ANYTHING!
JN Yes (laughs). And also not only was it intense work - we would do four parties a weekend - also I was in my mid-twenties, so I was partying a lot! So when you're thinking about the image of me running around with fifty children high on sugar, add in some of the most excruciating hangovers I have ever experienced, and you've got a real picture! (laughs)
RB YOU'RE AN ACTOR WHO SPREADS YOUR TIME PRETTY EVENLY BETWEEN THEATER, FILM AND TELEVISION... HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR THESE VERY DIFFERENT KINDS OF ROLES? DO YOU HAVE A PREFERENCE BETWEEN THEM?
JN I used to always say that I didn't think there was any difference between theater and film or TV and that ultimately the cross is the same. You know, if you can build a character and take the audience on that kind of emotional journey, to really take them behind the eyes and into the private space within a character, well that's a fact whether there's a camera there or not. But to be honest I don't necessarily believe in that anymore. The way you have to prepare and the actual execution for a stage play versus a movie is vastly different. Yes, there is a crossover in terms of preparation and you do a lot of academic or fact-based research. You read the books, you put yourself through all the practical challenges. For example, if you're playing a doctor, you might research basic things about what it's like to be a doctor, and if you have to perform some of the medical tasks, you obviously go home and practice those, so in that sense it's not different from theater.
But the significant difference, and the beauty and challenge of theater, and I'm sure lots of actors would agree with me on this one, is that there's no "second chance". There's no cut, no "let's go again ". So as a result you have to prepare well, and that's why you have five or six weeks of rehearsals because there's no second take. You have a thousand people watching you and so you really have to get it right every single time. Not only does that require incredible preparation, but when you are in the moment you almost begin to function on a higher plane of awareness. Lots of people talk about it like achieving a sort of "flow state". There are moments on a film set where you might feel that rush of adrenaline, often when it's a really big scene. For example, in the last scene of Happy Valley, I was in a kitchen with Sarah Lancashire, it was the final climax of the series, and the culmination of both our storylines. It was a sort of standoff between the two of us and it was very much like theater in the sense that I felt like I was almost existing on another plane. In theater, you get that every single night. It's almost like a drug, because you have to be so aware and fired up and conscious of your surroundings and of the other actors, it feels like you're sort of vibrating or tapping into another space. It's really special, but with that comes risk. And the risk is that you aren't prepared, or that something distracts you and you fuck up, and then suddenly you are flopping in front of a thousand people and there's no cut, no let's go again. So that's the risk, but with the risk comes great payoff.
I mean, it's not all good. It's easy to talk about the acting but film sets are basically about waiting. There's a funny expression that goes "Hurry up and wait". On set there is only a little bit of time when you are actually in costume, in character, you're with your co-stars and you're actually "doing the thing". In reality you spend most of your day sitting in a tent or a trailer, snacking and then every so often you are required to work. That's why I love theater. It's acting in its purest form, there's nowhere to hide. On a film set, there are so many other components that you get lost in and amongst all the other variables. Whereas with theater, it's just you and the audience. It's incredibly exposing, but it's also incredibly freeing.
There's also a huge difference in the experience you have when learning and creating scenes. In film and TV you do one scene and you might have to repeat it over a few takes, but then once it's finished, you never return to it. But with theater you do one scene or one play but you do it hundreds and hundreds of times, so by the time you come to the end of the run, you've found all the variables and you've dissected every single version of that particular moment. It can be monotonous if the material isn't great or the writing isn't brilliant. But when the variables come together in a wonderful alchemy, I love the feeling of delving deeper and deeper into one moment and doing it over and over again. It's very trascendent.
RB YOU'RE CURRENTLY PREPARING FOR THE ROLE OF JUDE IN A LITTLE LIFE ON THE WEST END. THE NOVEL IS A NOTORIOUSLY DIFFICULT READ AND COVERS EXTREMELY COMPLEX AND DIFFICULT SUBJECT MATTERS, NOTABLY GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF CHILD ABUSE. WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS ROLE? HOW DO YOU BEGIN TO PREPARE FOR IT?
JN So prior to hearing about the role I hadn't read the book. I'd heard of it but hadn't read it, and my agent called saying that Ivo van Hove was adapting it and was interested in talking to me about me potentially playing Willem. So I actually read the script first of all, which was a bit of a shame because then I knew what was going to happen in the book. The script in itself is very beautiful, of course because it is based on a beautiful book. So initially I had a conversation with Ivo about playing Willem, but then I watched the production and I started reading the book and delved deeper into the project and Jude's journey, even though I'm lucky enough to say that I haven't experienced the levels of trauma he had experienced. I would hope that very few people have experienced those levels of trauma. But there's something about his relationship with his past and this constant battle to respect and love himself. There's something within it which I think so many people relate to, and that's why the book is so universally loved. I certainly tapped into something in Jude's journey which felt very real.
I felt something in Jude's journey, which chimed with not just my experience, but the experience of just being alive and the confusion that comes with that. So I called my agent and we had a conversation about whether or not I could be considered to play Jude. And then Ivo and I met again, and I auditioned as Jude and it all just kind of went from there. Now I'm kind of so deep in, I've spent lots of time on the project and I've read the book and the script a thousand times and I can see that it's such a special piece of art. It's such a profound story, and a snapshot of the human condition. Now it feels like one of those roles, which is a kind of "hand of aces". I feel absolutely blessed to be doing it and it's a privilege to be able to be part of the first English-language adaptation in any media of this book. I've had so many conversations with people where I've mentioned that I'm doing this play and people just burst into their recollection of reading the book. Anyone who has read it seems to have a wave of memories about Jude's journey and how much it affected them. It's really a story that affects people and I feel incredibly lucky to be a part of it. When I first started discussing the possibility of playing Jude with my agent, there was another voice in my head saying, "What the fuck are you doing? Why are you even considering this? This is the type of journey which you run away from. You spend your life in therapy and protecting yourself from this kind of experiences, and here you are, volunteering yourself to go through something like that for four, sometimes eight hours a day." The self-preserving voice in my head was definitely saying, "Don't do it. Run away. Why are you doing this? Go on a holiday instead!" (laughs) Then I spoke to my partner about that and she said, "Obviously that's the reason why you should do it. You can't really get further out of your comfort zone than in this role." I wouldn't say I was reluctant because it was only a small voice in my head, but ultimately I knew deep down that I had to do it and fight for it.
YOU HAVE PLAYED OTHER VERY COMPLEX CHARACTERS PREVIOUSLY, SUCH AS YOUR ROLE AS TOMMY LEE ROYCE IN HAPPY VALLEY. WHAT IS THE MENTAL PROCESS LIKE FOR YOU WHEN PLAYING THESE KINDS OF CHARACTERS HOW DO YOU THEN STEP OUT OF THOSE SHOES AND BACK INTO JAMES ONCE IT'S ALL DONE?
JN This is a very big topic and I know there is a lot of conversation happening right now, particularly the very public conversation between the actors from the TV series Succession Jeremy Strong and Brian Cox that has been circulating. People have a lot of feelings about the famous Stanislavski Method, so to speak. I don't discourage people from it but I'm unsure if anyone really knows what "the Method" is. I think people borrow and pick and choose from lots of different methods and different techniques. There are times when I need to lean into my own world in order to inform part of a performance or a character. Nearly every part of every performance is borrowed from a reference you have in your own life, but it's not necessarily the same experience. I've never murdered anyone and I'm not psychopath, but obviously I know what it's like to feel rage, I know what it's like to feel isolated, I know what it's like to feel unfairly treated. And so I borrow from those experiences. So in that sense, I do tap into the essence of "the Method". But I believe that ultimately this is a job and we're very lucky to be doing it, but we're not saving lives. I have a life around it, which I'm really protective of. I love my family and my friends and I like to go on holidays and I have hobbies. If my job starts to infringe upon that life, for example if I take on a role that I can't shake at the end of the day and it damages my relationships and my relationship with my partner, then I know that I've drawn the line in the wrong place. You need to use what you need to use to do the best performance you can, but at the point at which it starts to infringe or disrupt or disturb your own life, then maybe you need to think about where you're drawing the line between life and work. That's not to say that Jude won't affect me. I mean, he already has affected me, I'm having very intense dreams and I'm having to make quite a lot of sacrifices right now. I'm living a very quiet, monastic life. I'm not really seeing any friends, I'm not drinking, I'm keeping fit and healthy and I'm spending most of my time just preparing for this play. So obviously there are costs and compromises and I'm making them willingly because I'll do it to the best of my ability. But once it's up and running I'll do what I can to protect my own mental health. That said, the production has also been very good and very aware of all these potential issues. We've got therapists on hand. They've got a company called the Clause of Thoughts, which is all about actors' mental health and well-being. They are aware that the subject matter is very disturbing and potentially triggering. Maybe I'm being naive and it may be that this particular job might run deeper than others and may need a little bit more care around. But I'm not someone who spends months in a character or who has difficulty shaking off the experience. I'm much more "Okay, get off stage, have a beer." (laughs) I'm saying that now, but ask me in two or three months' time and I could be a complete wreck and still sitting in the pub!
RB CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT SOME OF THE ACTORS YOU HAVE HAD THE CHANCE TO WORK WITH THROUGHOUT YOUR CAREER AND THE EFFECT THEY HAVE HAD ON YOU AS AN ACTOR?
JN Sarah Lancashire was really amazing. She's the queen! I love Sarah. There was a lot of craziness in those final scenes where we had a lot of input from figures from BBC and the viewers, and there were all the articles and reviews. It was all very crazy and trying to digest it all was quite difficult sometimes. It was this thing which took on a life of its own and it captured the social consciousness of its era. And in the midst of it all, Sarah texted me and sent this most beautiful message about working with me and I sent one to her. We just exchanged a couple of words, but it meant so much to me. It really cemented in my mind how special she is both on and off camera. She is just a dream to work with , and off camera, she's lovely. Everything you'd expect: down-to-earth, funny, irreverent, hardworking, caring. Alongside Sally (Wainwright, Happy Valley writer) she ran that ship and she's a brilliant leader: conscientious, but considerate at the same time. On camera she has incredible access to different levels of emotion with the truth that it actually makes your job so easy, because in the end you're just reacting to this absolute expert, to a person at the top of their game.
I do think that a lot of it has come from her being a soap star, going back to that idea of "the Method" and people having to prepare a certain way in order to get into a role. With Sarah, it's amazing, she is genuinely incredible, you can just be chatting away with her one minute and then she can just switch it on. And suddenly you are what you are. She's transformed herself , and you are in a room with an entirely different person. And as a result, the energy shift and your performance shift and you just have to react. It's wonderful. I love working with her and I love working with Sally Wainwright as well. I think Sally is one of the best writers out there right now. It was an absolute privilege to read her script. A lot of credit is given to the actors about their character arcs and all the surprising twists and turns that are taken, but the truth is, it all comes from the writing. Throughout the experience, I often thought that I wanted to give her some credit when accepting any accolades. Sally is so wonderful and humble as well. She really does almost stay in the background and allow us to act and take all the glory, when really she is the reason why Happy Valley was able to happen and became so successful.
