James Norton Quotations

If you're constantly stepping outside of the character and judging them, you'll never really be able to fully engage because you'll always be slightly cynical.

Every day, every scene, you were like, "My god. I'm doing a scene with Brian Cox today and then I'm onto a scene with Stephen Rea." For us young actors, I think we were all very, very star-struck and impressed by the caliber of everyone who came out.

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.

You really try to work the character out and spend time in the headspace of the character. That's what I did.

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.

As an actor, I think most people have a tendency to want to demonstrate that they can act, they can emote.

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 love good stories; you have to have a good plot - characters which intertwine with a good plot.

If you compare the violence in 'Happy Valley' to the violence in something like 'Game of Thrones,' it's nothing. But it is shocking because it's so real and grounded. The characters could live next door to you - they're not in a remote fantasy world.

If it's a sunny day, I get this weird guilt if I'm not making the most of it, so I'll walk or go for a swim or get on my bike, or I'll go to the Heath, just have a reason to get out.