James Norton says he WOULD do another series of Happy Valley

We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info

The third and final series of Happy Valley will be hitting screens on New Year’s Day on BBC One at 9pm as the Sally Wainwright drama is brought to a sensational close. Ahead of the show’s premiere, the cast and crew of the hit series spoke to media including Express.co.uk about working on the last series. James Norton, whose turn as the psychopath Tommy Lee Royce propelled him into the spotlight, opened up about returning to the character after a seven-year gap as well as people’s reaction to him.

Norton, 37, recounted a couple of occasions where he was mistaken for the evil Tommy: “It has happened.

“It happened in the first series. A lady came up to me in my local area and grabbed me by my shirt, shouting, ‘You’re a monster!’”

The moment left the actor dazed and himself confused by the random person. Norton said: “I woke up and was like, ‘I don’t know you.’”

Norton shared another incident: “I remember at a festival, I was dancing to a band and I turned around and she’d had a couple of drinks and she just yelped – screamed as I turned and looked at her because she was confronted with Tommy Lee Royce.”

James said he was a world away from Tommy in real-life but admitted he found it “liberating” playing such a character so opposite to him.

He said it was “strange” watching the episode with an audience at the screening and gauging their reactions to it.

Happy Valley served as Norton’s launchpad and turned him into a household name with the actor going on to land the lead in ITV’s period crime drama Grantchester as well as starring in the BBC’s Lavish adaptation of the Leo Tolstoy classic War and Peace and mobster series McMafia.

Some of his other roles have included the Hollywood movie Flatliners, The Trial of Christine Keeler, To Walk Invisible, Nowhere Special and Little Women.

Most recently, he featured in the HBO drama The Nevers as Hugo Swan with the series sadly getting cancelled after two series.

BAFTA-winning series Happy Valley was last on screens in 2016 with the show then going on hiatus for seven years. Wainwright said she wanted to wait for actor Rhys Conah, who played Tommy’s son Ryan, to grow into a teen and then re-visit the story.

Commenting on returning to Tommy, Norton said: “It was a unique experience because if you do have repeated series, you have a year or two max between. So that was unique.

“We were speaking recently, seven years didn’t really feel very long when you see everyone on set and you hug.

“It felt like seven years was nothing and then suddenly this huge, gangly brute wanders in who’s Rhys obviously and you think, ‘Seven years has passed.’ And it’s a long chunk because this man’s transformed.”

He went on to say: “But as far as the creative side of it, it makes the whole thing richer and you have this wonderful period where you fill in the gaps.

“Because Sally’s written such extraordinarily rich and textured characters, they kind of live in the seven years on their own. They fermented and grew on their own.

“So when we came back to them like old friends, their lives have moved on. Tommy’s is particularly small. He had a very quiet, specific seven years focusing on these two very clear things.”

The two things Norton was referring to was Tommy’s desire to reconnect with his son and take revenge on police officer Catherine Cawood (played by Sarah Lancashire) for preventing him from seeing Ryan and putting him behind bars in the first place.

Norton said about the impact of Happy Valley: “For me, personally, it changed everything.”

He continued: “It was the first time I had been part of that kind of conversation [about a show] where lots of people in the country were talking about it.

“There’s so much content now that very few of those shows happen, so it was a massive deal for me personally. It allowed me to play something completely different and people still refer to it and it shows. I owe everything to it and I love it.”

Happy Valley season 3 airs on New Year’s Day on BBC One at 9pm

Source: Read Full Article