James Norton: 13 Roles He Played Before House Of The Dragon

Thanks to House Of The Dragon and House Of Guinness, James Norton is becoming an international hot property.

However, the Bafta nominee has already been a regular on British screens for nearly 15 years, since rising to fame as the lovable vicar Sidney Chambers in the ITV detective drama Grantchester and the villainous Tommy Lee Royce in Happy Valley.

Since his on-screen debut in the 2010s, James has gone on to appear in a wide array of projects on both the big and small screens – though, admittedly, not all of them have stood the test of time.

As his star continues to rise, here are 13 James Norton roles you may have forgotten about…

One of James’ earliest notable appearances came when he was cast as Mr Henry Alveston in Death Comes To Pemberley.

The BBC murder mystery drama was an adaptation of the P. D. James novel of the same name, starring Matthew Rhys, Anna Maxwell Martin and Jenna Coleman as characters in the same universe as Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice.

Taking place six years after Mr Darcy’s wedding to Elizabeth Bennet, the show followed the investigation into the murder of Captain Martin Denny on the grounds of Pemberley house.

James’ character, Dr Henry, was a lawyer and legal reformer who was involved in the court case, and also served as a love interest to Georgiana, Mr Darcy’s sister.

James played Sir Clifford Chatterley in one of the many adaptations of DH Lawrence’s scandalous 1928 novel.

This TV movie version starred Holliday Grainger as Lady Chatterley and Richard Madden as Oliver Mellors.

In Lady Chatterley’s Lover, James played the war veteran husband of the titular character, who is paralysed from the waist down after returning from World War I.

Written and directed by Line Of Duty creator Jed Mercurio, the BBC adaptation also featured Jodie Comer and Edward Holcroft.

The BBC miniseries War & Peace is now renowned for its star-studded cast, many of whom went on to become huge names in Hollywood – James included.

The Leo Tolstoy adaptation starred future household names including Jessie Buckley, Lily James, Jack Lowden and Callum Turner, alongside more established actors Paul Dano, Brian Cox and Stephen Rea.

War & Peace followed five aristocratic Russian families as they navigated society, love and the French invasion of Russia under Napoleon between 1805 and 1820.

In the six-part drama, James played the nihilistic Andrei Bolkonsky, the son of the strict retired general Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky and the brother of Princess Marya.

Andrei spends much of the show frustrated with the superficiality of his high society life, trying to find a higher purpose.

That same year, James also appeared in the first instalment of Black Mirror’s third season (and its first as a big-budget Netflix original), entitled Nosedive.

Bryce Dallas Howard took the lead in the episode, which took place in a not-too-distant dystopian future, where people rated each other after each interaction via a smartphone app.

James played Ryan, the laid-back, videogame-obsessed brother of Bryce’s Lacie. Unlike his sister, Ryan was nonplussed about society’s opinions of him, rejecting the superficiality and spending most of the episode hiding behind a VR set, while Lacie desperately sought the affirmation of those around her.

The episode is still one of Black Mirror’s highest rated and best remembered offerings ever, with The AV Club commending the episode for painting “a darker picture, of a world in which the instant gratification of online approval has spread outward”.

You’d be forgiven for forgetting they ever remade Flatliners, let alone that it featured James Norton.

Meanwhile, the 2017 reboot starred Elliot Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev and Kiersey Clemons alongside James as medical students who try to conduct experiments that create near-death experiences.

The remake, which also acted as a sequel, was slammed by critics and now holds a measly 4% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Around the release of the ill-fated Flatliners, James also played a supporting role in Hampstead, alongside Brendan Gleeson and the late Diane Keaton.

The romantic comedy-drama was based on the real-life story of Harry Hallowes, who lived on a camp on Hampstead Heath, and successfully battled property developers, successfully claiming adverse possession when they tried to evict him.

Brendan played Donald, who served as a fictionalised version of the late Hallowes, with Diane starring as an American widow whom he befriends after she tries to help him.

James appeared as her well-meaning son, who was worried about the financial and personal burden Donald was putting on his mother.

Although made in 2017, the film’s release was delayed until 2019, reportedly due the allegations made against Harvey Weinstein, who had acquired the US distribution rights to the film around that time.

The movie was met with mixed reviews with Variety calling the unlikely rom-com “gentle, attractively appointed and phonier-than-thou Britcom in the Richard Curtis mould”.

BBC audiences were absolutely hooked on the crime drama McMafia when it premiered in 2018.

In the gripping series, James played Alex Godman, a young financier who became embroiled in a life of crime, rubbing shoulders with the Russian mafia and the Mexican cartel.

Inspired by a non-fiction book by journalist Misha Glenny, the series also starred David Strathairn and Juliet Rylance.

“This isn’t just a story of the sexy side of the mafia which people are attracted to, but also the cost of that lavish lifestyle, how it’s paid and who pays for it,” James teased to iNews in 2017.

Another big-budget BBC drama James Norton appeared in was The Trial Of Christine Keeler. Airing at the end of 2019 and start of 2020, the miniseries followed the real-life events of the 1963 Profumo Affair.

Sophie Skelton played Christine Keeler, the model who became involved in a national scandal when she had an affair with two married men. The 21-year-old was entangled with both a Soviet Union attache and the UK Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, during the Cold War,

James played Stephen Ward, a well-connected osteopath and artist who was dragged into the scandal when he introduced Profumo to the then 19-year-old Christine Keeler. He was also friends with the Soviet attaché and was later involved in the cover-up.

At the time, James’ most high-profile job to date came when he appeared in 2019’s Little Women, directed by Greta Gerwig.

The British star appeared alongside an illustrious cast including Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet and Florence Pugh, playing the hardworking tutor John Brooke.

In the film, his character married Emma Watson’s Meg March, with whom he has two children.

“I was very aware of the calibre of people on that set. I spent most of my time standing in the corner just trying to soak as much of it as I possibly could,” he told Variety at the Cannes Film Festival, calling working with the star-studded cast a “total privilege”.

One of James’ most critically-acclaimed projects is the 2020 indie film Nowhere Special, in which he played a single father with a terminal illness.

James starred as John, a man who must make arrangements for his four-year-old son after learning he has terminal cancer, while also shielding the young boy from his inevitable death.

In 2021, the actor was nominated for a British Independent Film Award for Best Actor for his performance in the drama. Nowhere Special holds a rare 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with The Guardian praising James’ “spine-tingling, intimate performance”, and the BFI calling him “grounded and genuine” in the role.

Set in Victorian London, the series followed a group of people who acquired abnormal abilities after a mysterious supernatural event.

In the steampunk series, James played Hugo Swann, an aristocratic pansexual man who owns a private club and is known for extorting customers.

In 2021, James called his character an “absolute joy to play”, telling Radio Times: “I love being able to let rip, and tap into that dark, wonderful, bawdy side of humanity. We’re all desperate to be Hugo Swann, but we’re all too repressed to actually give it a go.”

Kingsley Ben-Adir won acclaim and critical nods for his leading performance role as Bob Marley in the 2022 biopic, One Love.

The biopic followed the reggae legend’s career from his mid 70s success through to his untimely death in 1981.

In the film, James played the record producer and founder of Island Records, Chris Blackwell, who represented artists like Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh, and is credited with helping bring reggae music to the wider world.

James researched the mogul extensively and consulted with art director Neville Garrick to capture the producer’s personal dynamic with the late reggae singer.

He told Screen Rant about the importance of Neville and Bob’s son Ziggy Marley’s involvement with the project.

“Having those guys there, both in terms of just the references and the historical advice was brilliant, but it was a bigger, more profound presence,” he enthused.

Just last year, James both starred in and executive produced the four-part ITV drama Playing Nice, kicking off a run of prolific projects that included King & Conqueror for the BBC and House Of Guinness for Netflix.

In the show, James and Niamh Algar played a husband and wife, who discovered that their child had been swapped with another couple’s in the same hospital when they were newborns babies.

The series followed the couple as they tried to “play nice” and co-parent their biological child, while still raising the toddler they believed to be their own.

However, tensions quickly rose when legal threats were made by the other set of parents.

The show was one of ITV1’s highest-rated new dramas of 2025, breaking ITVX records with its viewing figures.

Digital Spy hailed Playing Nice as “the kind of show that will plague your mind in an infuriating, all-consuming, perfectly addictive way, although it did face some criticism due its storyline.

James hit back at the critics at the time, insisting: “Family, either your parents or your children, they are the thing which you have that 4am anxiety about,” he said.

“So this… I mean, look, I don’t want to push back [but] the people who are finding it too much – it’s drama!”

House Of The Dragon’s third season concludes on Monday on HBO Max, Sky and Now in the UK.