James Norton: the actor tipped for the next Bond on being objectified, Christianity and 'posh actors'

Fresh from War and Peace, James Norton is back as the handsome, surpliced sleuth in Grantchester – and he’s totally happy with being objectified

James Norton as Sidney Chamber in ITV's new series Granchester

James Norton has barely been off the television this year. After starring as Prince Andrei in War and Peace, he is currently playing psychopath Tommy Lee Royce in Happy Valley and will return as crime-solving Rev Sidney Chambers in ITV drama Grantchester.

Unsurprisingly, the actor has also been touted as one of the contenders to take over from Daniel Craig as the next James Bond.

Despite helping War and Peace earn the nickname “Phwoar and Peace”, Norton is modest about his fan following.

He says he has not yet reached “can’t leave the house levels”, and isn’t bombarded with messages from fan-girls on Twitter (a quick search would suggest otherwise).

He does at least acknowledge there is “great support and affection from a middle-aged demographic” for his Grantchester character Chambers, an unhappy-in-love vicar who enjoys jazz and whisky.

James Norton is the BBC's War & Peace (BBC/ Robert Viglasky)

Not many 30-year-old actors would jump at the chance of playing a clergyman, but Norton has a lot in common with his alter ego. Like Chambers, he studied theology at Cambridge University, and still finds religion an “endlessly fascinating” subject.

Brought up in North Yorkshire to lecturer parents, he went to Roman Catholic boarding school Ampleforth College, where he was taught by Benedictine monks.

He describes his family as “church twice a year” Anglicans, and says his familiarity with religion helped him win the part. “Nowadays you can sit around the pub table and someone says, ‘I’m gay, I’m transgender’, and no-one bats an eyelid.

You say, ‘I’m an evangelical Christian’ and people – especially my generation – go, ‘whoah, that’s intense’,” he says. “But for me, faith doesn’t carry with it these sinister undertones.”

Norton doesn’t identify with any faith in particular now. “I had a moment when I was quite involved in religion aged 14 or 15. I was a bit all over the place. I found structure and solace in the Church that led to this fascination. It became an academic exploration of faith,” he says.

But theology took a back seat to his passion for acting, which began at school when he was cast in his first role as No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani in a miming competition.

At Cambridge he was a member of Footlights, and after graduating with a first went on to train at Rada. He left acting school six months before the end of the course for his first film role, a non-speaking part in 2009’s An Education, starring Carey Mulligan.

With a world-class education and foppish looks, it is easy to see why Norton is compared to Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hiddleston. Does he have a problem with being part of a privately educated acting elite?

“If there is an issue, we should talk about when the ideas of the stories are conceived and who we’re writing about. In a similar way to the Oscars question on race, there is an imbalance of roles, but you can’t start to concern yourself with that as an actor,” he says.

Norton seems frustrated by the debate. “Your role as an actor is to transform. Your background should kind of be irrelevant. Happy Valley was such a relief for me, because the producers were trusting enough to take a punt on me. Actually the truth was they didn’t know I could do a Yorkshire accent.”

He believes the current trend for posh actors will pass. “There’s been other periods like the Royal Court’s John Osborne and Bill Gaskill era when it was completely the other story and that may well happen again.”

He has had a few auditions in LA, but has no “burning desire” to follow the Cumberbatch generation to Hollywood just yet. “There’s an expectation you will go from telly to film as you progress in the industry, but the truth is there’s so much great writing in television at the moment. You’d be a fool not to engage with Hollywood, but I don’t have any need to suddenly turn my back on the UK,” he says.

If anything, it’s Norton’s father who thinks of himself as the film star in the family. The retired lecturer at Hull School of Art and Design has appeared as an extra in most of his son’s TV series, including Death Comes to Pemberley and Lady Chatterley’s Lover. In War and Peace, Mr Norton lapped up his moment in the limelight as a peasant crossing a town square.

“His friends love it, they all take the piss,” says Norton. “None of them are from the industry at all; they’re all from North Yorkshire. I think he plays up to it and struts around like a Hollywood film star.” His father’s latest appearance as a member of the Grantchester congregation ended up embarrassing Norton when his father fell asleep on camera.

Badly behaved father aside, Norton enjoyed filming in his university town. He took co-stars Robson Green and Tessa Peake-Jones punting, and gave them a personalised tour of Cambridge. “I included a few of my own anecdotes. ‘That’s the Christopher Wren library, that’s where I threw up after formal,’” he grins.

There were no big nights out visiting student haunts, but he did get invited to formal hall at Chambers’s former college Corpus Christi, where he sat next to the chaplain – the job that Chambers has in the Grantchester books written by James Runcie, son of Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie.

With Chambers’s love for women and drinking, he seems exactly the type of liberal vicar today’s Church of England is crying out for. Norton quietly agrees. “When we were shooting the first series, the real vicar of Grantchester was retiring and a couple of villagers came up to me and asked if I would genuinely consider taking the role. I said I didn’t have time, but it was very sweet,” he says.

Sometimes the vicar seems too unbelievably good-looking to have ever chosen a career in the Church. Sidney has his own Mr Darcy moment in the first episode of the new series, where he takes off his top to go swimming after a picnic with crime-solving partner-in-crime Detective Geordie Keating.

The shirtless TV star has become something of a fad since Aidan Turner’s sun-beaten torso appeared in Poldark last year. Norton says he wasn’t contractually obliged to go shirtless, and maintains the scene is true to what would have happened.

“We were at a picnic, in the summer – Sidney and Geordie would definitely jump into the water. They are healthy and they cycle everywhere. They’ve never been to a gym in their lives.” I point out that Chambers doesn’t look like someone who has never been to a gym. “He scythes a lot,” says Norton.

Does he have any problems with men’s bodies being objectified on screen, as some have claimed since the rise of the Turner torso?

“I don’t think it’s awful. There have been so many years where women have been objectified; no one can deny that. If it’s men’s turn to have to sort out their beer bellies, then fine. I’m sure most actresses who have been through it for 20 years are over the moon.”

I imagine the female demographic will agree.

‘Grantchester’ starts on ITV on 2 March