James Norton, un acteur "classique" audacieux

Pas de prix pour James Norton (ni pour Sarah Lancashire d'ailleurs ) mais voici tout de même une interview de l'acteur sur le tapis rouge (il parle de Tommy Lee Royce évidemment mais aussi de sa couleur de cheveux )

Oui quand j'ai vu qu'ils n'avaient pas eu les prix ! J'étais triste Vraiment injuste.

Une p'tite interview dans le magazine Marie Claire

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James Norton was ‘dancing innocently’ at a recent festival, when the girl in front turned around , *came face to face [with him] and yelped “Oh my god!”’. As dashing as he looks today, sitting before me, all tousled dark strawberry blond hair, model cheekbones and piercing blue eyes, we both know this is not indicative of his good looks. Nor was the time another woman put her arms around him. She was trying to throttle him, screaming, ‘”you’re a horror’, at the top of her lungs.

It is however, enormous credit to his brutally disturbing, Bafta-nominated performance as clinical psychopath Tommy Lee Royce in award-winning BBC One drama Happy Valley. Back for a second series next year, it will continue to bring Norton as much grief as it does critical acclaim because, like any gifted actor getting into character, Norton has spent an awful lot of time in Royce’s head. ‘I do mundane things like go shopping or cycle around town [as Tommy] and find myself looking at people, just thinking, “Fuck you, Get out of my fucking way,” he explains. *Or giving a hateful look to the person innocently selling me my Granny Smith. I probably made a lot of enemies when I first moved to Peckham, wandering around as a psychopath.”

Despite a phenomenal breakthrough year - he gained an equally significant following as charismatic vicar-turned-sleuth Sidney Chambers in ITV’s Grantchester - Norton, who turns 30 this month, is unaware of his rising star status. Down-to-earth, charming and funny, he rocks up sans publicist to our offices near London’s South Bank, which is so unheard of, I find myself mumbling the merits of our humble headquarters by way of introduction. ‘Spooks was filmed in this building…’ I stammer. ‘And an advert for Tena Lady, I think. Winning.

For all the excitement of the past year, Norton says his life is exactly the same. ‘In a weird way [success] doesn’t change anything, but then sort of slightly changes everything’, says Norton. ‘You realise that, if you want it o, it can radically change stuff, but for most people, it doesn’t. Maybe I’m being really naive and the storm is coming…’

Sorry, James, I think it is. This month, he’ll play Duncan Grant in BBC Two drama Life in Squares, about the love triangles of Virginia Woolf’s Bloomsbury Group, before starring in autumn’s BBC One adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Then, after reprising his roles in Happy Valley and Grantchester, comes the biggie - the mammoth BBC One/Harvey Weinstein production of War and Peace, alongside Lily James, Paul Dano and Gillian Anderson.

Like Sidney in Grantchester, Norton - born and bred in a Yorkshire farmhouse - studies theology at Cambridge University. ‘You could see the show’s producers go “ding, ding”,’ he recalls of the audition with a smile. ‘For me, {Cambridge] was a happy three years. When I got in, I was mortified, because in my head I was saying goodbye to four drunk, hedonistic years, replaced by three hellishly hard, academic ones. But the best thing about university is everyone and everything is embraced. I didn’t have the happiest time at school, so it was a wonderful environment to be whoever you want to be.’

To the bemusement (buf full support) of his parents - both teachers - he ended up doing more acting than theology. ‘They never discouraged me; they were also never pushy, so it was the best support,’ he recalls. ‘Mum signs off her phone call every day with “Keep your feet on the ground.”’ They’re clearly close. The best bit about his recent Bafta nod (despite losing out to Stephen Rea for The Honourable Woman)? His plus one. ‘I was looking forward to phoning Mum and saying, “Get a dress.”

Yes, we’ve established he’s single. Not that his schedule (he flies to Lithuania for War and Peace the day after we meet) allows hi to think  about it. Although he does find time for his other (more surprising) passion, collecting vintage clothes. He has a meanswear rail at Charlie Foxtrot, a south London vintage shop run by his friend, actress Charity Wakefield. ‘I probably lose more money than I make, but I love clothes and buying vintage,’ he shrugs, picking at a ‘moth-eaten’ hole in his big, woolly jumper. ‘The great thing is seeking out a flea market in somewhere like St Petersburg, I usually pay for an extra bag and sneak it through customs.’

He also keeps a look out for nice pieces when he’s in LA. When he’s not being ‘summoned’ to breakfast with a certain Harvey Weinstein, that is. ‘It was an 8 am meeting and I only found out the night before’, he shudders, recalling sealing the deal on War and Peace. ‘I thought it was just going to be me and him, but when I turned up, there was this big round table with about six chairs, and this lady was like, [adopting an American accent] “OK, so you’re going to sit here and Harvey’s going to sit here”, and then three other execs turned up. I was terrified.’ I’m pretty sure the guy who wanders around Peckham scaring market sellers half to death can more than handle it.

Oh mon dieu ! La bouille d'ange mdr !

L'acteur a donné une petite interview (légère mais sympa) pour le magazine Marie Claire :

Pour la promo de Life in squares, l'acteur a donné une interview au Telegraph ... chez lui

High-res
An interview with James from The Telegraph. And photos from his home! I do love a guy with a splendid bookshelf (I just love books and bookshelves, it does tell you a lot,). Photos by Victoria Brinkshaw.

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James Norton, 30, is an actor best known for his roles in ITV’s Grantchester and the BBC’s Happy Valley, for which he was nominated for a Bafta. Norton was raised in North Yorkshire and read theology at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, before pursuing acting at Rada. He will play the artist Duncan Grant in Life In Squares, a new drama about the Bloomsbury Group, starting on BBC Two on July 27. Norton lives in Peckham, south London.
Routine I get up around nine o’clock on a regular day and five or six if I am shooting. I cannot function without a good breakfast: porridge in the winter and muesli in the summer. I grew up in the countryside so I feel guilty if I am inside too much. As a result, every day I have to go out and do something, like riding my bike. Someone once told me I am always trying to overtake London, and they’re probably right. I can get quite manic.

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Religion I have always been drawn to Eastern religions. I don’t practise anything, but as an outsider I find their way of thinking fascinating. Before university I travelled around India and Nepal learning about Hinduism and Buddhism, which I went on to structure my theology degree around. On a later return trip, an ex-girlfriend bought me this mandala [above left]. It’s a Buddhist meditation tool; the idea is to use the repetitious pattern to focus your mind.
Tailoring I’ve always liked vintage clothing. A friend of mine runs a pop-up shop nearby that I help stock the menswear section for; it means I can buy what I want and sell it if it doesn’t fit. I make sure to find a flea market wherever I am shooting. I found this herringbone coat in Doncaster. They would be amazed how sought after things like that are in London.

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Bookshelf One of the great privileges of being an actor is that you get to engage with little snapshots of humanity for a while, like Duncan Grant and the Bloomsbury Group. Often this involves reading a few novels and studies as research, so my bookshelf has become a record of my career.
Stage debut The first character I ever played was Gwen Stefani in a school miming competition in 1998. I was utterly terrified at first, and just stood there demurely tapping my foot, but then everyone began cheering. All of a sudden I started enjoying it, strutting up and down the stage and lapping up the applause. I completely forgot about it, but a few years ago my old French teacher sent me the DVD. It captures the moment I realised I wanted to act in front of people.
Tuck box I went to boarding school from the age of 11 and loved it. When you’re a boarder your tuck box is the most important thing you own. Tuck was currency, so a well-stocked and well-locked supply was essential. I still have my original box, which now contains 25 years of jumbled-up postcards, letters and theatre tickets. It has become a store for anything that is important to me.

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Rambling Maybe it’s something to do with turning 30, but I recently became a member of both the National Trust and the Ramblers. I love it. Last year I climbed the Brecon Beacons, Lake District and South Downs. I like the idea of being able to get out of London and climb a hill.

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Diving in Acting is quite a neurotic profession: you spend a lot of time in your own head and have to be fully concentrating – otherwise you’re wasting everybody’s time. It lacks the meditative repetition of a regular job, so I like to get away as much as possible. Since I was a kid I have loved wild swimming. There’s something about jumping into a big body of water that I find very calming and refreshing. I’ve got books on it, and take road trips to find the best spots.
Twang I spent the first 18 years of my life in Yorkshire, but I no longer sound like it. I find occasionally I have to justify myself to people – mostly other Yorkshiremen. I still visit quite a lot, and when I’m home the accent creeps back in. Doing Happy Valley was a blessing, as Tommy had a West Riding accent that I could easily slip into.
Cooking At university at first all I ate was beans on toast, but that had changed by my final year when I lived with a big group of friends. We often ate together, and I got more and more into cooking. I wouldn’t say I do fine dining, but I love getting people round a table for a feast. My sister gave me this cooking pot, which is ideal as I always end up making three times the amount I need.

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Bracelet There was a girl at Cambridge who directed my first few shows, a couple of which went to Edinburgh semi-professionally. She was older and became a bit of a mentor, convincing me that acting could be a career rather than just something I mess about with for a few years. She gave me a bracelet for my 19th birthday, then saw me a year later and swapped it for hers. I’m quite sentimental, so a decade on I still wear it every day in gratitude to her.

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Directing At some point I’d like to transition into directing. On set I spend a lot of time watching the technical craft of filmmaking, and it’s made me realise how much more I have to learn. As an actor you are effectively one brushstroke in a painting, which is liberating at times, but at others I find myself wishing I could have a greater role in the overall storytelling. Maybe I’m just a control freak.

très belle interview ! C'est charmant chez lui... je m'y sentirai tout à fait à mon aise C'est exactement le genre d'ambiances que j'aime.

Poppée a écrit:

très belle interview ! C'est charmant chez lui... je m'y sentirai tout à fait à mon aise C'est exactement le genre d'ambiances que j'aime.

Je me faisais la même réflexion

J'aime bien son bureau et son petit meuble dessus,

On voit trois bouteilles dans le reflet du miroir,

J'aimerai bien savoir ce qui traine sur les rayonnages de la bibliothèque

Oui, il a du goût !

Une autre interview parue dernièrement où il parle un peu de la suite de Happy Valley, de Duncan Grant, de Lady Chatterley's lover, de Guerre & Paix et de son goût pour les period dramas

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Since he burst onto our screens last year as twisted Tommy Lee Royce in Happy Valley, BBC1’s biggest drama of 2014, James Norton’s career has gone into orbit – and stayed there.

The talented 29-year-old went straight from godless Yorkshire psychopath Tommy to cultured lovelorn 1950s vicar Sidney Chambers in ITV crime drama Grantchester and there’s a second series of both hit shows planned, along with major roles in two heavyweight BBC1 adaptations (Lady Chatterley’s Lover and War and Peace) to come.

So TV Times grabbed James – currently on our screens as irresistible Bloomsbury artist Duncan Grant in BBC2’s Life in Squares – while we could for a quick chat about his amazing year and what’s to come…

Did you know much about the Bloomsbury Group before you filmed Life in Squares?
“I went to RADA, which is slap bang in the middle of Bloomsbury, and I was embarrassed then because I didn’t know much about them. So to be given the opportunity to delve into this world was fascinating and I devoured books about these wonderful and flawed individuals.

“I love that the drama takes it away from the academic side of them and shows them as a group of young people who were just muddling through. They were progressive and into free love, but bizarrely they were like a co-dependent family.”

What have you enjoyed about playing Duncan Grant?
“A lot of the time you play people like Tommy from Happy Valley who have a lot of baggage and angst, so Duncan was a breath of fresh air because although he leaves a lot of people upset, he does get a lot of life right and has this happy outlook, so it was great headspace to be in and he was inspirational.”

Did you have to learn to paint to play him?
“We had a lesson and I thought I’d be like Timothy Spall in Mr Turner and I even took my picture home with me. But afterwards, they let Phoebe [who plays Duncan’s artist lover Vanessa Bell] paint on set, but they wouldn’t let me.

“They realised that she had the knack, but I just didn’t, so whenever we had painting scenes I had a painting double and was told to sit in my trailer. My original painting has gone in the bin now!”

You have just filmed War and Peace for BBC1, what was that like?
“We only finished yesterday and I have just come from the hairdressers, because this morning I had big sideburns and loads of hair. It was a long shoot of six months and everybody has been using the word ‘epic’ about the show.

“We have been filming in the most extraordinary places in St Petersburg and at the Summer Palace, which are mind-blowing. We were also aware of the responsibility of being in Russia and how important that phenomenal book is for them, it is like their Hamlet, so we needed to be reverent. I think we have done it justice. “

You’ve got Lady Chatterley’s Lover coming out soon too, are you having fun tackling these various periods?
“Yes there is a lot of period stuff at the moment and sometimes I do get told I have a period face! They are all different though; with something like Life in Squares it is still a very contemporary story and with texts like War and Peace and Chatterley, the reason they are in our literary canon is because they are so good, so it is a privilege to be able to do them.”

Are you looking forward to series two of Grantchester?
“Yes, I have my first fitting in two weeks after I come back from a holiday in France with friends for my 30th birthday. Filming Grantchester takes me through to October and then Happy Valley films in the winter and then after that I have a clean slate.”

What do you know about what’s in store for Tommy?
“I’ve only read one or two of the scripts so I know bits and pieces and I am not giving anything away when I say he is still psychotic! I can’t wait. Tommy is great; he’s a victim himself and a brilliantly written character.

“I was so lucky to play the role because he’s so different from everything else I’ve played and from my own life. A character like Duncan Grant teaches you how to live life the right way, Tommy teaches you how not to live it.”

source : what's on tv

Quelques gifs de James Norton dans Life in Squares trouvés sur ce site : (un argument pour découvrir la série si ce n'est déjà fait ? )

Oui, pas besoin d'arguments... les images suffisent ! Il faut que je la regarde mais j'avoue n'avoir pas pris le temps de le faire.

Oui, les images parlent d'elles-mêmes Plus sérieusement, il est très bien en Duncan Grant, hâte d'avoir ton avis

Emjy a écrit:

Oui, les images parlent d'elles-mêmes Plus sérieusement, il est très bien en Duncan Grant, hâte d'avoir ton avis

Je voulais attendre les dvds... mais je pense craquer avant

@Marmeladedelivres : Le DVD est sorti il y a quelques jours en Angleterre !

Emjy a écrit:

@Marmeladedelivres : Le DVD est sorti il y a quelques jours en Angleterre !

ahahahahhahahahhahahaa bon je vais commander tout ça

@Marmeladedelivres : Hâte d'avoir ton avis sur la série et Duncan Grant alors

James Norton et Natalie Dormer font partie du jury du Bafta Breakthrough Brit 2015 visant, comme son titre l'indique, à récompenser de jeunes espoirs parmi les nouveaux comédiens anglais. Je ne savais même pas que ça existait ^^

Je crois que c'est une récompense assez "ancienne" (une dizaine d'années je dirais) mais elle a changé plusieurs fois de nom : à un moment, c'était le Orange rising star award. Le jury a généralement du nez pour ce prix car plusieurs des lauréats ont fait de jolies carrières après (par exemple, Eva Green, James McAvoy ou Tom Hardy).

La photo que tu as posté est très sympa en tout cas !

Je ne connaissais pas non plus, merci sandie des précisions!

Ils sont super chouettes sur la photo :3

Ok, merci pour la précision, Sandie

Et contente que la photo vous plaise ! Ils auront peut-être l'occasion de jouer un jour ensemble, qui sait ? ^^

Olalala, ça serait génial j'adore ces deux acteurs, j'aimerais beaucoup les voir travailler ensemble!

Une photo avec des paquets de cigarettes rétro    et une petite interview faite à Cambridge, toujours sur le tournage de Grantchester (qui n'en finit pas !) :

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How does it feel being back in Cambridge?

You have such a fondness and special time for the place but then you leave and suddenly it’s not yours anymore. [Interrupted at this point by a crazed lady pointing out historical inaccuracies in his character’s bicycle.] When you come back after leaving, you sort of feel like it has been taken away from you by someone else.

How has it been different?

As a student, you only have a certain level of access to the place, whereas now, I have a different relationship.

They trust us more, and whilst we are quite destructive, we are generally quite a good thing for the city. As an actor you get behind the red tape. It reminds me of being here as a fresher on King’s Parade, when the magnificence of it all hits you.

What drew you to the role?

The series is a gorgeous; the writer uses this tone that treads this beautiful line, nice provocative writing, yet warm and escapist television. I feel like there is an affection for the characters. It’s more of a why-dunit rather than who-dunit.

What kind of memories do you have from your time in Cambridge?

I remember May Week, sitting on the backs, watching the sunrise, and just as it peaks, a sudden change coming over us all and us all jumping into the Cam.

What was the worst thing to happen during the time of your degree?

On my first night in Cambridge my grandmother gave me my great Uncle’s new Amsterdam bike. I was so excited to be here that I accidentally left my room key in my bike lock. After a night in Cocos at 3am, I was so drunk, I was 18 and so fresh-faced, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and my room key and my bike were gone.

So for my first night, I called my mum and I cried. Some bastard has my great-uncle’s bike.

Une petite interview de James Norton et Natalie Dormer :

Ah super ! Vivement les saisons 2 de Grantchester et Happy Valley. J'ai vraiment hâte