The Big Picture

Blackwell’s collaboration with Marley shaped music history by supporting his message and reaching a wider audience through Island Records.
Blackwell took a chance on Marley by providing funding without a contract, showing trust and recognizing their potential in the industry.
Norton teases upcoming projects “Joy” and “Playing Nice,” showcasing his versatility in roles from heartfelt drama to a TV show based on an unexpected twist.

On the perilous road to becoming a cultural icon, Reinaldo Marcus Green’s first-ever biopic of the singer-songwriter, Bob Marley: One Love, hones in on a particular period in Marley’s life. Shortly after the attempt on his life, Marley (played by Kingsley Ben-Adir) relocated to London, where he and his band would go on to create one of the most influential albums in music history. While so much changed, from social upheaval to standing tall in the limelight, one of Marley’s constants was the collaboration between him and music producer, Chris Blackwell.

Played by Happy Valley’s James Norton, Blackwell came into the picture well after Bob Marley and the Wailers had established themselves in Jamaica, but it was the team-up with Blackwell’s Island Records that would support Marley’s message in reaching a wider audience. Struck by the band’s energy, both Blackwell and Marley took a chance on each other when the producer offered to fund an album, Catch a Fire, which became the catalyst for their journey together.

In an interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Norton talks about the surprising qualities he learned while researching Blackwell, the relationship between the producer and singer-songwriter, and teases a couple of upcoming projects he’s working on, Joy and Playing Nice. You can watch the video above, or read the full interview transcript below.

Bob Marley: One Love also stars Lashana Lynch as Rita Marley, Alexx A-Game as Peter Tosh, Anthony Welsh as Don Taylor, Abijah Livingston as Bunny Livingston, Tosin Cole as Tyrone Downie, and more.

Bob Marley: One Love A look at the life of legendary reggae musician Bob Marley.Release Date February 14, 2024 Main Genre Drama

COLLIDER: You’ve done a bunch of stuff in your career. If someone has never seen anything you’ve done before, what is the first thing you’d like them watching and why?

JAMES NORTON: Wow, of my stuff? Interesting. Probably something which is as far away from me as possible, which would be, I guess, I did a show called Happy Valley where I played a psychopath, and that was fun and very meaningful. It did a lot for me, and I had an amazing journey. It took 10 years to shoot. We did three series over 10 years, so that was a big chunk of my life, and I’m proud of that. I’m proud of a lot of things, but that one I’m particularly proud of.

Image Via BBC

So Chris Blackwell, if you research him, many people say he’s one of the most important record executives of all time. When you were researching playing someone like this, what really surprised you to learn about him?

NORTON: I think that the sense I get from him and having met him now and reading his book, and speaking to people like Neville Garrett, who was on set every day, who was one of Chris’s really good friends and has known him for six decades or something, the sense I get from the guy is not ruthless and business-minded. I mean, he definitely has a business head, I guess, because he wouldn’t have been able to create Island Records and have the career now in real estate and hotels that he’s had, but there’s a gentleness and humility and a quietness to him, which I think was most surprising. Apparently, he would spend his time kind of in the shadows.

The interesting thing about Chris is that there are very, very few photos of him. If you actually try and find him in the many decades of his incredibly successful career, he’s hardly ever with his artists. He’s usually somewhere kind of quietly at the back or in the corner, which I admire and it surprised me because it felt like that type of music exec, that level of success would come with an ego, and it doesn’t seem to have done.

Chris Blackwell Took a Chance That Caught Fire

The thing I was surprised by is that he fronted, without even a contract, money to Bob Marley and the Wailers to get them to record their album without any paperwork.

NORTON: £4,000. Apparently, everyone in Island was like, “What are you doing? This is crazy.” And he based it on some of their tunes he’d heard, but mostly, I think in his book he talks about the energy that Bunny [Wailer/Neville Livingston], Peter [Tosh/Winston Hubert McIntosh] and Bob brought into the room. He was just like, “These guys are the real deal. I need to be part of this.” All of his colleagues were like, “You’re an idiot. Why are you throwing away £4,000?” [Laughs] And of course, then that led to Catch a Fire and boom, they were on their journey together. And I think that that show of trust very early on in the career was a huge thing for Bob, and that’s partly why their relationship continued for so long.

People should realize that £4,000 now is a lot of money, but £4,000 in, like, 1960 or whatever it was is an enormous sum of money.

NORTON: Yeah, and they didn’t record it in London. He gave them the money, and then they went back to Jamaica and they recorded it in their studios in Kingston. And then, however many months later, he turns up, and he’s like, “Is there an album? What happened to my money?” And there was, sure enough, an incredible album, which I think most of the tunes they played for him then were on the album. So, that shows both their professionalism and talent in terms of Chris as an executive trusting artists and seeing potential, but also in terms of Bob and his professionalism and kind of the journey, the message he was sharing.

James Norton Teases His Upcoming Projects ‘Joy’ and ‘Playing Nice’
Image via Paramount Pictures

I was looking at the always-accurate IMDb and I saw two upcoming projects you’re in that I wanted to ask about, which is Joy and Playing Nice. What can you tease about both, because they’re so radically different?

NORTON: They are radically different. Joy I’m so excited about coming out later this year — Bill Nighy, myself, Thomasin McKenzie, all about the pioneers behind the first IVF, the first test tube baby. It’s very sweet, very heartfelt, lots of tears, lots of laughter. This motley crew of scientists who, against the odds, managed to kind of get this incredible thing over the line. We had a load of fun shooting that for the summer. I’m a huge fan of Bill. Bill, Thomasin, and I have become quite tight. We go for quite a lot of dinners together now, which is obviously a good testament to how much fun we had in the film. But yeah, that one I’m really excited about, and really proud of.

Playing Nice we shot after that, and that’s a TV show I produced. It’s the first show I’ve produced out of this production company I have with this wonderful producer called Kitty Kaletsky. We shot down in Cornwall for three months. It’s based on a book by J.B. Delaney, and it’s about these two families who find out that their kids were swapped at birth. So, very different. Well, kids being the kind of throughline, I guess. [Laughs] But again, amazing time shooting it. I’ve got the first viewing of the first episode the day after tomorrow.

Oh, so it’s really close?

NORTON: It’s real close. Yeah, I mean, we’re literally like three weeks into the edit.

That sounds nuts, the story of that.

NORTON: Mad, yeah. I’m excited for you to see it. I’m proud of them both, so it’s a lot to be excited about this year.

Bob Marley: One Love is in theaters now.

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