The Big Picture

James Norton disucsses the challenges and emotional depth of teaching a 4-year-old about death on set.
The casting process for finding the perfect Michael in
Nowhere Special
involved hundreds of applications.
James Norton, in addition to discussing the film, opened up about producing & acting in the historical period drama
King & Conqueror
.

Nowhere Special is undoubtedly one of the saddest movies that American audiences will watch this year now that it’s finally made the jump across the pond after releasing in the United Kingdom back in 2021. The tight, 96-minute film from writer-director Uberto Pasolini follows John (James Norton), a single father facing the grim realities of his terminal illness, which includes finding a suitable adoptive home for his 4-year-old son, Michael (Daniel Lamont). Ahead of the film’s April 26 release date in the United States, I had the chance to sit down with James Norton for a lengthy conversation about his work on the film.

During our discussion, Norton spoke about what it was like having a 4-year-old scene partner who was learning about death in real time, the casting process for finding the perfect Michael, and what it has been like getting to promote the film for the past four years. In addition to discussing Nowhere Special, Norton also opened up about his upcoming series King & Conqueror and discussed if he would be interested in returning to the world of video games, after voicing a role in Dragon Age: Inquisition over a decade ago.

Nowhere Special When John, a thirty-five-year-old window cleaner, is given only a few months to live, he attempts to find a new, perfect family for his three-year-old son, determined to shield him from the terrible reality of the situation.Release Date July 26, 2024 Director Uberto Pasolini Cast James Norton , Daniel Lamont , Carol Moore , Valene Kane , Keith McErlean , Eileen O’Higgins , Laura Hughes , Éva Morris Runtime 96 Minutes Main Genre Drama Writers Uberto Pasolini

What Was It Like Teaching a 4-Year-Old About Death?

COLLIDER: There’s that really beautiful scene where John is trying to explain the concept of death to Michael through this dead beetle. It was so wild watching this because I had a very similar experience when my grandfather died. I was trying to explain death to my cousin who was five, and at the time, we had this goldfish that had died, so I was trying to use that to explain how death happens. Unfortunately for me, the goldfish came back to life and completely obliterated my entire explanation of death, which just killed me at the time. [Laughs] But it was so interesting seeing this scene because obviously this is an experience that is quite universal. It got me thinking, have you ever had an experience like that where you’ve had to find a way to explain death to a child, maybe with Daniel [Lamont] on set as you’re experiencing this in real time?

JAMES NORTON: That’s such a good question. [Laughs] Sorry, I just love the idea that your cousin is now, like, just deep into reincarnation at that moment. He’s now like, “Where’s Grandpa?”

“Well, he’s a fish.” [Laughs]

NORTON: Exactly. I mean, my main experience is obviously the movie, and it’s true, so much of this film was about connecting with Daniel the actor. The reason why it worked so well, and I’m so proud of it is because it was a very, very real thing we were going through every single day. Daniel was four, and he didn’t really know what it was to be an actor. He turned up on set, and at the very beginning he didn’t have a clue. About two weeks into the filming, he said to his mum on the way home one day, he was like, “When do we start the film?” And she was like, “We’ve been filming for two weeks, Daniel. What do you think we’ve been doing?” He just didn’t really know what he was doing. But on some very instinctive, deep level, he understood when he came to work that he was gonna leave Daniel, and he was gonna become this other character, Michael.

When he did, when he went into the character, it was so different from him. He was sort of quieter and thoughtful. It was a remarkable transformation. He would engage with me in such a kind of authentic way, look me in the eye, and I would talk to him about the scene. Sometimes, the scene would spill out into James and Daniel, so we would talk about the beetle in the scene, then he would continue and he would ask me questions, because he was a four-year-old. He was just at that point in life where he was intelligent and inquisitive enough to understand a very basic concept of death. So, what you’re seeing, it is a performance from me, and it is a sort of performance from him, but you’re also witnessing a little boy in real time confronting this concept of mortality for the first time, and I was reacting to that.

As an actor, all you can hope for is that your scene partner is giving you something truthful, and I had the most beautiful, heartbreaking, truthful thing to react to in front of me every single day. I mean, it was the scene with a beetle; it was the scene with the candle when he was willing his dad to have one more year; it was the scene at the very end of the film when I’m reading the book where dinosaurs go to die. I was so choked every single take. The director, Uberto [Pasolini], had to keep coming in, saying, “James, you have to stop crying. We need you to be strong and stoic in the scene.” And I’m like, “I’m fucking trying,” but I’ve got this little boy looking at me, pointing to the dinosaurs in the book, going, “Wait, I don’t… What do you…?” So yes, I’m sure I’ve had other experiences similar-ish, but I will always remember what it’s like to spend 30-something days with a four-year-old, ruminating on death and trying not to cry as a result.

What a heavy responsibility, and in addition to creating such a beautiful performance for people to cry over as well. I cried over all those scenes that you just mentioned there, especially that birthday candle scene was just heartbreaking. But you made a really good point talking about scene partners. What is it like having a child as your primary scene partner? I know you’ve worked with children in the past, but this is, like you said, 30 days where your primary scene partner is a four-year-old.

NORTON: It could have been a disaster, and we were fully expecting it to be much, much more challenging than it was. I have worked with kids quite a lot now. I’m in that particular age bracket where all I play are dads of young, young children, and it’s lovely. It can go one of two ways. Sometimes it’s a disaster, and the general rule is don’t work with children and animals, because you don’t know what you’re gonna get, and it’s constantly complicated, and they can only work for small increments of time, and all this kind of stuff. We were expecting that, the cliché of how hard it was gonna be. It wasn’t that at all. It was, as I said to you before, such a pleasure to work with something which was so painfully raw in front of me. And so, I think that’s the magic. It is a big challenge with kids, but if it works like it did with Daniel, the payoff, the magic which you experience, is just so, so wonderful.

I’m doing a show right now, and we’ve got little, little kids, like little two-year-olds, and it’s a nightmare. They don’t know what they’re doing, and it’s impossible. We lose hours when one of them doesn’t wanna wear the hat which they wore in the previous scene. The continuity goes out the window, and it’s like, “How do you expect a two-year-old to keep wearing this itchy medieval hat?” I mean, I get it. I’m like, “I wouldn’t want to wear the fucking hat.” So, I’m learning more and more how to do it, and it’s mostly about just being patient. But if you’re lucky enough to find someone like Daniel, who’s so genuinely inquisitive and has a real maturity and a presence, he really sort of sits, looks you in the eye, holds your eye contact, thinks… It’s not that he’s a big sort of jazz-hands, stage kid. He’s actually the opposite. He’s quite shy. But when you get that, and it works, fuck, it’s magical. It really was magical.

How Did They Find the Perfect Michael for ‘Nowhere Special?

It was very magical to watch, as well, which got me interested in what was the casting process like for this? Were there a lot of different chemistry reads with other potential Michaels, and it was just pure magic when it was Daniel?

NORTON: It was a little bit like that. We had a great cast director in Belfast, Carla Stronge, and she was amazing. She basically put an open invitation to Belfast across Facebook and said, “If anyone’s interested in their four-year-old being in this movie, send your photo and name,” and we got masses of applications. I think it was hundreds, 400-something, and then that was whittled down by the cast director. I think I met three or four Michaels. I certainly met twins, which we were very close to casting because that means you get double the amount of time and you can switch them in and out, and they’re just young enough to look pretty much identical. I remember having this real agonizing decision where we knew Daniel was the one — he was so undeniably brilliant — but we also knew that with the twins we would get double the amount of time, and it would be a hell of a lot less complicated. But thank goodness we went with Daniel.

I think it was probably because, yeah, we had a chemistry read which was basically just me playing, but there was something there. He just trusted me. As I say, he looked me in the eye, and he was present with me. He wasn’t overwhelmed by this weird situation he was in, being introduced to these old people who were asking him to pretend to be someone else. He didn’t really get fazed. Then, obviously once he was cast, what was really lovely and unique — and this is one thing I’ve learned for future kinds of roles with kids — was the main rehearsal process and preparation I had to go through was very simply spending as much time with him as I could in his house with his toys, and just playing and making sure that he saw me as someone who he trusted and would be fun and imaginative, so when he came to work, and he saw me in the big melee of a film set, he was like, “Yeah, there’s my friend James!” We just had a good time together. I spent hours playing in his garden and playing with his spaceship, and it’s kind of great.

I love that so much. Something I think that’s really interesting with Nowhere Special is the fact that it’s had a long period of time since it was made, and you’re still getting to come back and revisit it. What has it been like getting to come back and continue to talk about this film? I think it’s been about four years now since it was made.

NORTON: It’s interesting. The film had a really wonderful response in the UK and Europe. We premiered at Venice in the middle of the pandemic, I think when Venice was the only festival to have an in-person festival. It was presented in this big theater, all socially distanced, and everyone with masks. I remember turning around and seeing lots of people with tear-sodden masks trying to observe the rules, but also just trying to get the tissue because they were all crying, which is lovely.

I don’t know why it wasn’t released in America straight away. To be honest, it’s kind of lovely. I love talking about it. Lots has happened in the meantime, and I love being able to promote projects which I’m proud of, and I’m really particularly proud of this one. I’m still in touch with Daniel and his family. I’m gonna call them after this junket and let them know that I’ve spent three hours singing his praises, and he’ll probably say something sarcastic at me back. But yeah, we made a very special little community. We kept that community alive, and so to come back and just to share it with the US and North America is great. I’m excited for you guys to watch it.

James Norton’s Next Project Has Been 5 Years in the Making

It’s a very beautiful film. I did want to ask about a couple of other projects. You mentioned one that I’m already really interested in. My background is actually in history, so King and Conqueror is on the top of my list for things that I need to see. How has that been filming that? Because that’s like a deep period piece, kind of outside of some of the other stuff that you’ve done.

NORTON: Deep period. I’m currently in the middle of the shoot. My blonde hair, it looks a little anachronistic, but when I’m in my full medieval garbs, it makes more sense. My family are all light haired, so it’s been a real experience. As I say, we’re probably nearing halfway now. We shot in Iceland. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is playing William and I’m playing Harold. It’s a wonderful cast — Juliet Stevenson, Eddie Marsan, Emily Beecham, Clémence Poésy. A beautiful group of actors, a really lovely ensemble. Bálint Szentgyörgyi is at the helm, and it’s a deep dive into the history. An incredible amount of it is true, so we haven’t had to veer really far off the actual truth and the drama and the sort of soap opera aspect to it. It is just incredible.

For me, it’s been a real big one, because I’m producing it as well. So, it’s my production company which is making it. I’ve been developing it for about five years, and we’re deep into it. My business partner, Kitty Kaletsky, who runs the company with me, is a brilliant, wonderful, wonderful force of nature. We do spend quite a lot of times in the studio with this huge build, like, “How the fuck did we end up here?” So, it’s a very exciting project. There’s a lot of spinning plates. It’s a lot of responsibility, but so far so good. It’s going well.

How did you pick this as the project that you really wanted to produce? Is there a specific kind of theme that really resonated with you that you were like, “I want people to experience this?”

NORTON: So it’s the third project we’ve actually produced. We’ve made a movie called Rogue Agent, and we’ve had a TV show which we shot before Christmas called Playing Nice, which is also coming out later this year, or the next year. We don’t exactly know when — probably this year. So, it’s one of the many projects which we have on our slate. In terms of the reason why it’s kind of come to fruition quickly is partly because I find it fascinating, and it’s such an integral part of English history. In England, it’s the first date we learn — 1066, Battle of Hastings. No one really knows much more about it than that, but it’s one of the first things we learned so everyone has a relationship with it, including me. What’s continued to propel us forward is the characters. It’s this incredible gallery of really interesting characters, all real people from history. So, I’m not a history nut, but I’ve become more and more engaged with it.

And we’re really lucky. We’ve got this incredible writer called Mike Johnson, who is a history nut and is obsessed with this period and knows everything about it. So originally, the idea came from him, and then another producer called Rob Taylor, Ed Clarke and I, the four of us, we sat in a room five years ago and said, “This is a brilliant opportunity. Why has no one told the story about the Battle of Hastings?” And not only that, it’s an incredible story. The 20 years leading up to it, William and Harold were friends — they became friends — and so by the end of their friendship, they ended up on the Battle of Hastings; they knew that one of them was gonna die. So you’ve got these two friends standing on the other sides of the battlefield going, “One of us has to die.” Brilliant drama. So we were kind of like, “This is too good to be true.” Like, “How has no one told this story yet?” So we just started developing it, and here we are. It felt like a no-brainer.

That sounds fantastic. Now that you’re into history like this, I can’t wait to see what other rabbit holes you might wander down in the future because there’s so many, like, “I can’t believe this is true. I can’t believe this has happened,” in history.

NORTON: We have a few on our slate. We have one in particular, which I can’t talk about. It’s really exciting. Again, how on Earth has no one told the story? I mean, English history, European history is so varied and so full of drama. So, yeah, that’s really exciting. I’ve got a film called Joy, as well — talking about history — which is less period, but it’s set in the ‘70s and it’s the first IVF baby. That’s coming out. Netflix is releasing that soon. So I’ve done a few varying degrees of “period,” but I’ve done a few period dramas recently and they’ve been really lovely. It’s been exciting.

Will James Norton Ever Go Back to Voice Acting in Video Games?
Image via BioWare 

Another question I had for you is, I’m actually embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know that you voiced a character in Dragon Age: Inquisition. I put so many hours into that game over the years, and when I was doing the preparation for this, I was like, “He voiced Cole?” I could not wrap my head around it. Do you have any interest in voicing video games again if the opportunity arises? There are so many insanely cool things that they’re doing with video games these days.

NORTON: Yes, I would love to. If anyone in the gaming world is listening or watching this, yes! I loved that experience. What was really remarkable is I’m not that experienced in the gaming world, I’m not a gamer myself, but I was allowed a little window into a community which were incredibly welcoming. I’ve had moments, particularly when that game came out, where I’d be walking down the street and someone would be listening to my conversation, and they would turn around and go, “Wait. Wait…” And they would come to me and say, “Are you Cole? Are you the voice?” And they’d just heard my voice from a conversation I was having. The reactions were so heartfelt and kind of beautiful. It’s almost a more profound reaction, and more moved than, often, people who have seen me on TV in a whole many-episode series. So, yeah, it was really interesting. I didn’t play it. I never went and played it, but I knew enough about Cole and his crazy, wonderful, wonderful journey to know that it was a pretty special world that we were creating. The gaming world gets bigger and bigger and bigger. I think it’s even bigger than film now, and I had a lot of fun voicing that character. So, yeah, I will definitely say “never say never” about that. [Laughs] I’m keen to do some more.

I’m so fascinated by all the mo-cap stuff they’re doing now with video games, where you’re not just the voice actor, you’re the movement too. You’re the face and the body. It’s very cool what they’re doing these days.

NORTON: Yeah, it’s mad. It’s a proper frontier, which is getting bigger and bigger. Whereas film, it isn’t that it’s not, it’s finding new spaces, like the 3D thing, although that seems to have kind of slightly gone away, but they try and push the medium into new spaces. Whereas, as you say, gaming, and that kind of all-immersive thing, especially with the VR stuff, the world is gonna continue to grow and grow. It’s exciting.

Nowhere Special opened in NYC at the Quad Cinema and in LA at Laemmle Royal on April 26, 2024, with a national rollout to follow.

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