Norton did not have a blissful teenage
experience. At 13, he went away to Ampleforth
College, a single-sex boarding school known
as the “Catholic Eton” that would end up at
the centre of an inquiry into targeted sexual
abuse of children. While Norton has said
he has no knowledge or experience of that
abuse, he has also said he was “quite badly
bullied” there.
“It was pretty grim. I was at the bottom
of the pile. Boarding school’s not good for
anyone. I was very aware that there was a
massive party going on in the world, but I was
not invited until I was about 18. And when
I did, I let loose, I...”
Went wild?
“I did. I really did. But if you were at the
bottom of that kind of power structure, you
don’t feel powerful. You don’t feel attractive.
So when you then meet girls, it’s a complete
alien thing. You’re not equipped. It wasn’t
as if I was on holidays, walking into the local
town, going into the pubs going, you know...”
He fakes a seductive swagger. “I was just
quite gauche. If you asked my 16-year-old
self that question – ‘How do you understand
being a pin-up?’ – I just would’ve laughed.”
We talk about the emotional schism very
good-looking celebrities often experience,
the separation between the way the world
perceives them and their enduring inner
sense of themselves as Just Not All That.
“I’m bumbling my way through a sort of
slightly nonsensical answer to your question.
No. I don’t feel like a pin-up. I don’t suffer
the sort of objectification, like a lot of my- particularly female – peers in the industry.
When it happens, I don’t go home feeling
violated. There have been weird moments,
when I was leaving the Donmar Warehouse
[after appearing in a 2017 run of Belleville] - it was a bit weird actually. There was a
certain fanbase of...”
Grabby Grantchester ladies?
“The Grantchester ones are often quite
sweet, and I think, when there’s a slight age
difference, there’s a sense that there’s a licence
that they can, you know, kind of grab and
squeeze... Sometimes, being a man, there are
moments when I get squeezed and prodded
and poked, and it’s fine. I don’t feel violated.
That’s too strong. But...”
It just is a bit weird?
“It’s a bit weird. Yeah.”
It was during the Donmar stint that Norton
met, and began a relationship with, the actress
Imogen Poots. The couple have been together
for three years. Before Poots, Norton was in a
two-year relationship with Chernobyl actress
Jessie Buckley, with whom he starred in War
and Peace.
Buckley would speak about the end of
that relationship in a 2018 interview with
The Times: “ ‘We have broken up, yes. It
was acrimonious, but it’s a tough job to have
a relationship and he is a great man and we
are great friends. That’s it.’ She forces a laugh.
‘How diplomatic can I sound?’ ”
I can’t imagine anything worse than going
out with another journalist, I say – yet Norton
seems to be making a habit of dating other
actors. Is it inevitable? Given the lifestyle and
the love scenes and so on?
“I don’t think it’s inevitable. I have
happened to date a few people in the industry,
and my current partner is an actress. But it’s
great. She’s great.” Poots moved into Norton’s
flat in Peckham, south London, in April 2020,
in the first phase of lockdown. “We had an
amazing time. We thrived. I think we counted
ourselves quite lucky, because we weren’t
home schooling kids, and we were able to
work... But she’s in Albuquerque now...”
Filming?
“Yes, and she’s been there for a few
months. She’s coming back in July. The
likelihood is I won’t see her for a long, long
time. We live on FaceTime. But I’m not with
her because she’s an actress. I’m with her
because she’s amazing.”
Are you going to get married, have kids,
blah, blah, blah?
“Oh, I don’t know. That’s not really up to
me. That’s up to...”
Norton attempts another tactical tail-off.
I fill in his implied blank: her?
He won’t be led.
I tell him I couldn’t watch Nowhere Special
all at once, because it was too sad. He talks
about the process of open-casting DanielLamont, the extraordinary four-year-old who
plays his son: “A Facebook message, sent
around Belfast... When he was cast, we’d go
over to Belfast periodically to just hang out
with him in his bedroom and play with his
toys, so we’d earn his trust.” The director,
Uberto Pasolini, made Norton learn how
to clean windows, to add authenticity to his
performance of window-cleaning as John. Has
he cleaned any windows since filming ended?
“I wish I could say I have. I’ve got the kit. I’ve
got the Squidgee. I’ve got the belt, which is
sitting somewhere in... uh... The fact I don’t
know does suggest I haven’t done it since.”
We talk, inevitably, about Covid. Norton
has type 1 diabetes, which means he’ll get his
vaccine earlier than most other 35-year-olds.
“I think I’m before the 55-plus but behind
the 65-plus. There aren’t many perks when
you have a chronic condition like diabetes,
but when there’s a pandemic... I mean, I’m
genuinely excited about my vaccine. I have
definitely queue-jumped nightclubs [because
of diabetes]. If there’s a massive queue or there
are no more tables in a restaurant, I’m like,
‘Sorry, but I really need to eat, because...’ ”
Not, “Do you know who I am?” so much
as, “Do you know what underlying health
condition I’ve got?”
“Basically.”
But otherwise, he’s trying to be cheerful
about lockdown, looking forward to seeing
Poots again, then to, “I don’t know, just having
a beer in a pub, having a sweaty drink in a
horrible club. Dancing. Are you the kind of
person who finds excitement in the Roaring
Twenties thing, which we’re all going to
experience?” Norton asks, invoking the
popular thesis that, once Covid is over, the
world is going to explode into an extended
exercise of joyous hedonism, the kind last
experienced in the Twenties, after the Spanish
Flu and the First World War.
Oh, I really am.
“Yes! We’re going to be, like, ten years
younger than we actually are, all back in
our mid-twenties, just raring to go, ripping
it up. I can’t wait. I’m going to see so many
dawns. I thought that period of my life was
done, you know? Going to bed, the walk of
shame – but no.”
I cannot wait to be half-drunk in the back
of an Uber, listening to Smooth FM, only just
on my way home at, like, 6am.
“Yeah. And you’ll see me on my bike.”
Swearing and gesticulating at people?
“Yeah.”
I look forward to it, James. nJames Norton is brand ambassador and
creative collaborator for Belstaff (belstaff.co.uk).
Nowhere Special will be in UK cinemas when
they reopen; The Nevers will be available on
Sky Atlantic & NOW TV this year‘I WAS NEVER ATTRACTIVE
AS A YOUNG MAN. I KNOW
THAT FOR A FACT’
Norton on his bike in London, 201826 The Times MagazineSPLASH NEWS