In the pub, James Norton is the sort of chap we’d all be happy to take home to meet our mother. He has a big, broad smile, buoyant quiff and, as he sips his pale ale and nibbles on crisps, he is as warm as he is charming — the human equivalent of a glowing fire.
Most actors aren’t like the characters they play, but few can match Norton for being Jekyll and Hyde. At 37 he has quietly become known for his range: Grantchester (a sleuthing vicar), War & Peace (hot prince), McMafia (corrupted financier) and The Trial of Christine Keeler (pervy osteopath Stephen Ward).
Norton has always picked roles that defy typecasting and his background (prep school then Ampleforth, the Catholic Eton, then theology at Cambridge). None more so than, of course, the sadistic triple murderer and serial rapist Tommy Lee Royce in Happy Valley, which returns tonight.
A lot has changed since the show last ruled the ratings. The gritty, witty Yorkshire cop drama by Sally Wainwright started in 2014, before a second series cemented its reputation two years later. It won five Baftas. The third and final series is set just as Sergeant Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) is due to retire. Royce — who with long hair and a bloodied face looks like a twisted Jesus — is still in jail, while his son Ryan (Rhys Connah), the product of rape, is a teenager now and wants to meet.
It is terrific to be back in this brutal yet familiar world — Happy Valley is one of the best British dramas of the century, with Wainwright hitting a bullseye. Or, as Norton puts it, her show has “grey, depressing weather and a feeling of deep injustice and boredom, but there is family, warmth and loyalty and it’s funny as f***”. It was also pioneering, airing three years before the #MeToo movement that vowed to put more female stories on screen.
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“Making a show with a character who is both a grandmother and a hardcore Robocop hero does not feel unique now,” says Norton of Lancashire’s Cawood. “But the first two series turned people’s heads because the premise seemed so absurd. Women were not only underrepresented but badly represented. Violence towards women was written by men and titillating in tone. Then Sally did this deft thing where a lot of the sexual violence was implied. That was Sally denying the audience any titillation. That was revolutionary.”
Still, whether the violence was on or off screen, Royce is up there with the most evil roles on television. A lot of actors talk about how they cannot help but take roles home with them — so how does Norton cope? “I mean, I just sort of do,” he shrugs.
“There are parts of Tommy’s story which were inevitably uncomfortable. I had weird dreams about violence. But not everybody goes off set to their trailer to cry. I love my job, but, ultimately, acting is pretending. At the end of the day I’m usually tired and I want to have a bath, a beer and to decompress. It’s not like I’m going home and thinking, ‘I can’t get Tommy out of my head.’”
This is refreshing. Norton is an actor, but he has not lost himself to the waffle of actors. When he was at drama school his teacher told him: “I don’t care if you feel it — only that I feel it.” Essentially Norton thinks it is “bullshit” if any actor believes they have failed because a part has not left them “emotionally ravaged”. The only thing that matters is that the audience is moved.
So he is no Daniel Day-Lewis — a man who grinds his soul for every role. Which allows Norton to take on more work. Would we all not take a Day-Lewis performance that was 10 per cent less intense if it allowed him to appear in more films? “I know!” Norton says, laughing. “It costs him so much, and that’s a little bit sad because my experience of a set is that it is fun.”
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Norton’s next big role is in A Little Life — a London stage version of the bestselling, incredibly grim 2015 Booker-nominated novel by Hanya Yanagihara. He will play the tortured lead, Jude, who self-harms after suffering unspeakable abuse as a child. On matinee days Norton will perform for eight hours. “I am worried about that,” he admits, suddenly sombre. “And now I’m contradicting what I’ve just said, but I know this is going to cost me a lot.”
It will run for 12 weeks from March at the Harold Pinter Theatre and fellow actors have already been in touch to ask if he knows what he has let himself in for. “In light of this job I do slightly regret being as flippant as I was.”
There is something endearingly honest about Norton, who figures himself out in interviews rather than coming prepared with soundbites. He admits to googling his name and enjoying the “horribly cheap endorphin hit” of a nice article. He talks about his fiancée, the actress Imogen Poots, and how he would like a family with her, but says the life of an actor is so unpredictable that, despite getting engaged last year, they are still way off planning a wedding.
Then, just as I want to ask about his diabetes, Norton suddenly slips out a syringe, pulls up his jumper and injects himself in the midriff. “Here I go!” The actor has type 1 diabetes, which means he needs to inject insulin up to 15 times a day, constantly monitoring his condition using a device called a Dexcom, which sends information on his blood sugar levels to his phone via Bluetooth. He, clearly, needs to live cautiously, but his condition has not panicked producers and has not cost him any roles.
“That’s as it should be,” he insists. “I’m another diabetic living a normal and healthy life. As long as I’m careful on set it’s fine and I’m relieved about that. The moment an insurance company says they can’t cover me will both be heartbreaking and upsetting. I’ll be really angry.”
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We end, as is tradition in every interview with Norton since about 2019, with the rumours that he will take over from Daniel Craig as James Bond. He is a suave, handsome Brit and so his name has been in the list of favourites for years — alongside people like Idris Elba and Tom Hardy. “It’s been so long that I expect it to come up in every interview,” he laughs.
There really is, he says, no truth to those persistent 007 rumours, but the question remains, what will Norton do next? Happy Valley has him back doing what has, so far, been his greatest achievement and where he found his groove. What exactly did Wainwright see in Norton, in 2013, that made her think this palpably nice man could play a psychopath?
“I was thinking that this is so far from me I could have fun with it,” Norton recalls of his audition tape. He was 28 then, fresh from playing a heroic public school officer in the First World War on stage in Journey’s End. He smiles. “Casting me wasn’t the obvious choice — it’s nice to go against expectations.”
Happy Valley is on BBC1 at 9pm tonight
