RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 2 sourcesJames Norton is no stranger to playing chilling psychopaths— his portrayal of a violent criminal in the British thriller Happy Valley remains goosebump-inducing to this day. And yet, at the same time, Norton was leading Grantchester in the role of a delightfully empathetic vicar. The actor’s range is likely why House Of The Dragon ‘s creator Ryan Condal pursued him to play the charming but cruel Ormund Hightower.
In season three, Ormund—armed with his precious pomander, of course—tries to scheme his way into King’s Landing and the throne room via his ward/nephew, Daeron Targaryen (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth). As long as there are no awful smells, he’ll be just fine. But all of Ormund’s efforts are in vain during the finale, when he meets his maker in an unforgettable fashion—no one else in the Game Of Thrones universe can claim they died partly by a dagger shoved up their ass.
Ormund Hightower may be gone, but Norton’s performance secures his place as House Of The Dragon ‘s most captivating villain yet. The A.V. Club spoke to Norton about his “playful” final scene, his early conversations with Condal about the character, and whether or not Ormund’s death ranks up to Oberyn Martell’s in Game Of Thrones.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
The A.V. Club: What was your immediate take upon reading how Ormund dies? Did it feel true to the character because as it’s happening, the smell of blood is about to make him throw up?
James Norton : It was an evolving piece. I knew, of course, that he was going to die and that they had the ambition around his death, in that they were going to go big and playful with it. But often what happens is the latter episode scripts come in later, so I knew more about the structure of it, but the intention and actual specifics were vague. I can’t remember what happened first in terms of script or stunts, because what this show is really, really good at is drilling you into the stunts. I’ve never been on a job where I had so many stunt rehearsals for one sequence. Ormund really didn’t have any apart from the big sequence with Tommy Flanagan at the end. But I went in, and I must have had seven or eight rehearsals. When I thought, “Oh, I’m done now, I’ve learned the thing,” they went, “See you in three days.”
In those sequences with Rowley Irlam, who’s our stunt coordinator, I remember he was so excited about this idea that he had had around impaling Ormund with a sword or a dagger. It was all drip-fed to me. But I knew from the beginning that it was ambitious and a fun, big swing. In terms of the plausibility, it’s quite naughty because it’s ludicrous, as a lot of Ormund is, but what we would often do with the show is you push it to this extreme where you go to the ridiculous and then you realize where that line is, and you pull it back. For example, at one point, Ormund was getting impaled 20 times. Tommy and I were thinking that’s probably too much, let’s go back to one impaling. So there were experiments of pushing it to an implausible place.
For me, we’d established this crazy intolerance to smell and germs—he’s a proper germaphobe—and every time that particular trait came up, my job was just to play it as truthfully as possible, and that’s where the comedy is. It would have been ludicrous if I was trying to be funny. All I had to do was play this guy as if he has an allergy. So it’s a reflex for him. Then out of that came the narrative that did.
AVC: It’s certainly memorable because he’s getting impaled by the dagger, a sword is being rammed into his backside, and there’s dragon fire. They wanted to make sure we knew that he was dying dying.
JN: He really is! And dying together with Tommy’s Roddy the Ruin, too. I thought that was lovely because Roddy’s desperate to die and Ormund is not at all desperate to die. We both get this strange couple, preserved-for-all-eternity-together type of death. There’s something intimate about it, which adds to the absurdity of the whole thing.
AVC: When Ormund is knighting Daeron, did you want to make it seem like there are genuine tears in his eyes? Is that to convey he really does care for the guy, and isn’t just making a power play?
JN: One of the very first conversations I had with Ryan Condal early on, I remember we had coffee in London, and he said, “Listen, I’ve got this role, and I’d love for you to do it.” He talked about the smell thing, and I got the sense that he wanted Ormund to be big and eccentric and delicious. But one thing we both agreed on from the beginning is that the love between him and Daeron needs to be authentic, or the character will just be pantomime, and of a different world, and people will just roll their eyes and laugh. There won’t be any affection for him besides the ridicule. He’s a monster that needs to find some humanity, and that comes from Daeron.
So every time I would clasp him on the shoulders, tell him I was proud of him, tell him how worthy he was of being king despite his Targaryen blood, and listen to what he had learned, it was important to tap into something familiar and timeless with those scenes. It had to be like going home to your parents and telling them how you had a good day at school, or you’re pleased at what your teacher told you, or something. It had to feel domestic. So even in that knighting moment, it didn’t feel manipulative. Those tears were real. The love for Daeron is real. It was maybe harder for Ben [Evan Ainsworth] to play those because for me, Daeron is a sweet kid. He means well, he’s intelligent, he tries hard, even though he betrays Ormund at the end. But the love Ormund had for Daeron felt plausible. It was ...
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