James Norton sees part of himself in ‘War and Peace’ role
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| Photo by TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE Pierre Bezukhov (Paul Dano) and Prince Andrei (James Norton) in “War and Peace" |
By Laurie Sparham
Virginislandsdailynews.com, 18 January 2016
PASADENA, Calif. — When he was a little boy, actor James Norton stole a piece of chocolate from his mother. “I kept it for weeks and months and eventually I showed it to her and she was angry,” he recalls in a sparsely furnished hotel room here.
“I remember it was the first moment I felt guilt, and I felt I’d done something wrong. I think that was a really interesting moment because it was the sort of moment where the innocence and naivete left, and I realized there was sense of a moral compass and there was a choice.”
That moral compass led him to pursuing theology at Cambridge in his native England.
“When I went to university and studied theology it was very much from the point of view of interest, and it became an academic pursuit and that’s really where I stand now. I was never going to be a minister,” he says.
He wasn’t going to take the cloth because when he was 5 years old he played Joseph in the school’s play, and the joy of play-acting never left him.
“Looking back I definitely had the bug from an early age. My family had nothing to do with the industry. My mom and dad were both in academia and teaching and my sister’s a doctor. My grandparents and aunts and uncles, none of them are in the industry and yet when I was 5, 6, 7, I remember kids coming over to play and rather than playing football, I’d write a play. I’d direct it. I’d star in it. And we’d perform it in a window for the mums and dads. I think my friends got fed up. They definitely wanted to go outside,” he laughs.
He attended a Catholic boarding school from 13 to 18, but says he never felt like he fit in.
“I had a pretty bad time at school ... I was quite small and went through puberty late, and that makes quite a difference when you’re in an all-boys school. So when I left school I had a lot of energy when I was 18.”
He worked in a hotel bar and at a golf club for three months to earn enough money to travel. “I went backpacking on my own for about eight months in India and Tibet and Nepal – I went around the whole of south Asia at 18,” he says.
Incessantly inquisitive, he says it was a chance to explore unencumbered. “It was a valuable informative experience because I was able to breathe. Go: ‘I can be whoever I want to be!’ And didn’t have to feel I was confined by the expectations of the boys school.”
The actor, who played the vicious killer in “Happy Valley” and the laid-back pastor in “Grantchester,” finds himself in new quarters as the dark Prince Andrei in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” which premieres simultaneously on A&E, Lifetime, and the History Channel this week.
It was an arduous tryout, with Norton auditioning on tape dozens of times. “Then I got a call on a Tuesday night about eight from my agent saying, ‘(Co-producer) Harvey Weinstein wants to meet you at eight for breakfast in his hotel. Can you be there?’ So I met Harvey.”
That meeting went well because Norton soon found himself draped in Napoleonic trappings in Lithuania. “There’s so much in the book in Andrei’s head about the angst and the disillusionment and the cynicism,” he says, “and what was the real challenge in the audition and — why we had to do it so many times — was they wanted me to be really contained and hold it in and only let out the darkness in tiny, tiny doses.”
Uncovering that darkness reflected Norton’s own search when he traveled the foothills of the Himalayas. He found himself attracted to Buddhism. “But I find myself living a life which is so un-Buddhist,” he shakes his head. “I find myself surrounding myself with possessions, and I cling on to relationships, and the memories yet in my head. Andrei’s story is essentially Buddhist. He searches for some sort of resolution, some Nirvana, and he does begin to strip things away... I feel like I need to learn more and do more stripping back.”
Pausing, he adds, “I’m not sure I found my sense of peace yet. All the characters I seem to play are all searching for that calm.”
Acting, he says, helps him learn about himself. “It’s something I love and it gives me a sense of purpose and pride at what I do. But it’s confusing because with that there’s an immense amount of vanity and self-obsession. Your body and your whole brand is so important to the work. I finished the job a month or two ago, and I panicked. I called my agent: ‘I need to... ‘ I suddenly realized that my whole sense of well-being was being defined by the job. And I really needed to get some perspective and realized that this is only a job at the end of the day.”
The miniseries will air for four weeks on Monday nights.
