James Norton Quotes

Half of what creates psychopaths is genetic, but the other half is conditioning.

When I got into drama school, that's when I knew that I could safely say that I wanted to be a professional actor.

I crashed my bicycle on the way to my first date with my ex-girlfriend and was cautioned by the police.

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.

It takes a lot of courage, when everyone is asking you what you want to do, if you say that you want to be a musician or an actor; people can be very condescending and say, 'Oh, that's so sweet, good luck with that!' It can be very frustrating.

Being in a person's head for five months, where they're so hateful, is kind of exhausting.

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.

I do a mean mouth trumpet.

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

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

'Happy Valley' has really changed things for me.

We live in secular world now, but most of our art and culture is rooted in religion.

For a long time I had a vintage stall, where I sold men's vintage clothing, and my girlfriend was convinced it was just to do with a problem I had where I just couldn't stop buying senseless clothes, even if they didn't fit me.

I think the mistake lots of people make when it comes to a psychopath is that they completely write off their actions as cruel, callous and completely calculated, but actually, the truth is that they have interests and reasons behind their actions.

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.

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.

I grew up in the countryside, so I had quite a feral life up until the age of about fourteen.

I had the acting bug from a very early age.