\u201cI was at a gig and some people turned round, saw me and screamed. Another time, a woman came up to me on the street, grabbed my neck and shouted, \u2018You\u2019re a monster!\u2019 She then caught herself and said, \u2018I\u2019m so sorry, that was really inappropriate.’\u201d He pauses. \u201cIt was quite funny.\u201d It\u2019s easy to see why the character provoked such a visceral response. Across two series, whether his hair was dyed blond or cut brutally short, whether his eyes were a piercing blue or utterly indifferent, Royce was terrifying.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div> It\u2019s been six long years since the second run of Sally Wainwright\u2019s brilliant cop drama Happy Valley in 2016 and the recap at the start of the third series will make the hairs on your neck stand on end. There\u2019s Sarah Lancashire as Sergeant Catherine Cawood, fiercely protective of her grandson and mourning her daughter, who took her own life after being raped by Royce. And there\u2019s the man himself, newly out of prison after going down for drugs offences, determined to befriend his young son (who resulted from the rape) and make Cawood\u2019s life a misery \u2013 both mentally and, ultimately, by kicking the living daylights out of her.<\/p>\n
Of course, James Norton isn\u2019t anything like him; in fact, he\u2019s playing against type. His TV soulmate is more likely to be Sidney Chambers, the empathetic, tortured vicar he played in four series of ITV\u2019s Grantchester<\/a>. Norton is talking by Zoom from Dublin, enthusing about the cold showers he enjoys at the start of most days and the swim he\u2019s going to take in the Irish Sea after our interview. He is thoughtful and engaged, his hair gelled into a kind of Mr Whippy quiff. But for the new series of Happy Valley, Royce has long hair and a beard, which everyone will assume is a nod to a Messiah complex.<\/p>\n Norton, 37, attended Ampleforth, a Benedictine boarding school in North Yorkshire, before studying theology at Cambridge (he went to Rada, but left before graduating in order to take an acting job). Did he feel comfortable exploring religious imagery on screen?<\/p>\n \u201cThe more we interrogate religion, the better,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s why I studied theology: religion is such a significant part of our lives, whether you\u2019re religious or not. It underpins so much art, literature and music. But Tommy\u2019s look might be misleading\u2026\u201d He stops in his tracks, clearly wondering if he\u2019s about to drop a spoiler. I wait, hopefully. \u201cYou\u2019d be wrong in thinking Tommy is suddenly a born-again guy,\u201d he goes on. \u201cSally is so elegant in her storytelling, it\u2019s much more mysterious and subtle.\u201d<\/p>\n What about the hair? Did he really grow it that long? \u201cHaha! Well, the beard is all mine. And it\u2019s a lot of my hair, but also a lot of extensions. I quite quickly acquired these weird tics of someone with long hair. I found myself coming out of the shower and doing this\u201d \u2013 he waves his head around as though he\u2019s in a shampoo ad \u2013 \u201cand wrapping the towel on top of my head.\u201d<\/p>\n It seems odd to be joking about a rapist and murderer, but Norton points out that the darker the role he takes on, the greater the need to find humour wherever he can. He starred opposite Amanda Seyfried in the 2021 Netflix horror film Things Heard & Seen<\/a>: \u201cI\u2019ve noticed that the atmosphere on a horror movie is often more playful than a normal set, because you\u2019re desperately trying to offset the darkness.\u201d<\/p> Norton insists he is able to \u201cdip in and out\u201d of Royce and it\u2019s very much make-believe. But after thinking some more he admits that he\u2019s not inured to Tommy\u2019s shocking behaviour. He recalls the \u201cparticularly violent\u201d scenes in which Sgt Cawood rescued police support officer Ann Gallagher (Charlie Murphy) from the cellar in which Royce had her imprisoned. \u201cWhen we filmed those scenes, they were much more violent \u2013 they were tamed down in the edit. I remember having really weird dreams for quite a long time after that.\u201d<\/p>\n When Wainwright first talked to Norton about playing Royce, almost a decade ago now, she said he was a very sad, troubled man. \u201cShe didn\u2019t say he was a psychopath. The implication very early on was that I could decide how to define him, if at all. I was sent to talk to a criminal psychologist at the Priory who\u2019d read the script. We tried to get deep inside Tommy. Everyone thinks of him as a psychopath, a vicious, murdering, raping, horrible monster, but of course that\u2019s not his truth. He was badly abused as a child, he sees the world as inherently dangerous and hostile. So my way in was through the sheer wretchedness and desperation that young Tommy would have felt.\u201d<\/p>\n Norton has the empathy that Royce lacks, but he also found a certain freedom in portraying such a heinous character. \u201cAside from the violence, there was an element of Tommy I absolutely loved playing. I overthink everything and worry that I\u2019ve said the wrong thing. Tommy is the ultimate anarchic rebel who doesn\u2019t need any affirmation. I\u2019d have to say that Tommy exploded my experience of the world by taking me to sad places and enhancing my compassion.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2022\/12\/410303-4694c33.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
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