‘Nowhere Special:’ James Norton On His Subtle, Potent Performance In This Indie Gem [VIDEO]

Brit born thespian James Norton is one of the most versatile, daring, and outstanding actors working today. He has been gifting audiences with amazing performances on stage, screen, and TV for well over a decade and has been nominated for a BAFTA, a British Independent Film Award (BIFA), and an Olivier Award. Hopefully, America will finally be exposed to his many talents.

In Uberto Pasolini’s emotional indie gem Nowhere Special, Norton delivers a moving, poignant, and quietly powerful portrayal of a father who must come to terms with his own immortality and say goodbye to his beloved son. Norton plays John, a Northern Irish window cleaner in his mid-30s raising his 4-year-old boy, Michael (Daniel Lamont). John has a terminal illness and only a few months to live. In that short time, he must find a new family for Michael. But how is that even possible? This loving, heartbreaking yet hopeful movie was filmed pre-pandemic, opened in the UK in 2021, and is finally being released here in the U.S. (Both Norton and Lamont were nominated for BIFA Awards.)

Norton’s film credits include Ron Howard’s Rush, Joel Hopkins’ Hampstead, Agnieszka Holland’s stirring Mr. Jones, Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, and Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Bob Marley: One Love.

Most of his TV work has only been seen in Britain and includes his most celebrated TV series Happy Valley (BAFTA nomination), Grantchester, McMafia, and War and Peace opposite Lily James and Jessie Buckley as well as Joss Wheden’s HBO series The Nevers, which has achieved cult status since premiering in 2021. Of the latter, 6 of the 12 episodes never aired on HBO and are rarely accessible — except through collector channels.

The thesp’s West End stage debut was in the original cast of Laura Wade’s Posh (along with Kit Harington) in 2010. A year later he played Captain Stanhope in a revival of R.C. Sherriff’s Journey’s End (Laurence Olivier originated that role in 1928) as well as Geoffrey in a revival of James Goldman’s The Lion in Winter.

His most recent London stage endeavor was certainly his most challenging, Ivo van Hove’s sprawling and wrenching adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara’s best-selling novel, A Little Life, which ran from March-August of 2023. Norton embodied Jude St. Francis, a physically and mentally afflicted attorney who suffered terrible abuse in his early life that severely damaged him. The audience is taken on a 3-hour and 40-minute odyssey of unrelenting trauma. Having attended one of the final performances in London, I can attest to the fact that Norton’s work was so visceral, so authentic, so audacious—it’s quite simply one of the greatest performances I have ever seen onstage. The hope is that some intrepid producer(s) will have the balls to bring it to NYC.

His immersion into each and every role, regardless of medium, is striking.

Nowhere Special is being released by Cohen Media Group this Friday in NYC at the Quad Cinema and in LA at Laemmle Royal with a national rollout to follow.

Awards Daily had the absolute pleasure of zoom-chatting with Norton about Nowhere Special as well as A Little Life.