TV heartthrob James Norton has revealed for the first time that he was turned down for the lead role in erotic thriller Fifty Shades Of Grey because he wasn’t ‘charismatic’ enough.
Instead, the role of sado-masochist millionaire Christian Grey in the eponymous film went to Irish actor Jamie Dornan – and turned him into a star.
The much-hyped movie, featuring graphic sex scenes between The Fall star and Dakota Johnson as his submissive lover, was released in 2015.
Norton, who was relatively unknown when he auditioned, had just hit the big time after the release of the first series of Happy Valley the previous year.
He was the breakout star of the series as psychopathic Tommy Lee Royce – the role for which he is still best known – and has not stopped working since.
On his audition for Fifty Shades, Norton recalled the director asking: ‘Can you be a bit more charismatic?’
He told The Guardian: ‘That’s the hardest thing to just try and do. Especially since I was too young and self-conscious to even really know what she meant!’
The adaptation of E. L. James’ Fifty Shades novel, which caused a sensation for its S&M subject matter when published in 2011, was box office gold despite being panned by critics.
It grossed £25.2million in ten days and became the UK’s biggest 18 certificate film ever.
Now Norton, who also starred as a vicar in Grantchester and has just turned 40, has two very different TV dramas in the offing.
First, he is to star in King & Conqueror, produced by the company he co-founded, Rabbit Track Pictures, for the BBC and based on the battle for the English crown in 1066.
He admitted that producing the drama was stressful. ‘It’s the closest I’ve ever come to feeling like I’d bitten off too much,’ he said.
Next month, he stars in House of Guinness, a Netflix show about the Irish stout dynasty, written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight.
