Liked the Night Manager? YOU’LL LOVE THIS
James Norton is a respectable financier forced to confront his Russian family’s gangster past in slick thriller McMafia. And it’s not as far-fetched as you might think, says Lisa Sewards from the set
James Norton has long been the bookies’ favourite to become the next James Bond. So when the director of his latest high-octane drama, the international gangster thriller McMafia, put him in a black tuxedo for the opening scene, James knew it would set tongues wagging. ‘I did warn him if the first scene had me getting out of a black cab in a tuxedo it might stir things up,’ he smiles. ‘To be honest, I’m personally very thankful that Daniel Craig is going to do at least one more film, maybe two, or five. I’m a big fan.’
He’s far too modest if he thinks the speculation ends here, because whether he’s playing an angst-ridden prince in the BBC’s epic adaptation of War & Peace, a troubled vicar in ITV’s Grantchester or a psychopath in Happy Valley, he still manages to make hearts throb. It’s only his great aunt Grania who says she can’t understand how James looks so good on TV when in real life he’s ‘relatively bland’.
He has an undeniable presence, so it’s no surprise he was chosen to star in the eight-part mini-series that’s billed as the new Night Manager. After his critically acclaimed performance as Prince Andrei in last year’s War & Peace, James is returning to a Russian world of conspiracy and violence – but this time in the 21st century, playing hedge fund manager Alex Godman who’s trying to escape his Mafia family’s legacy of crime. That presence is all too visible today when I visit the set where the Godmans’ London penthouse apartment has been created. The place is dripping in gold, with pictures of a real young James dotted around for extra authenticity.
The drama is based on Misha Glenny’s hard-hitting non-fiction book of the same name, which exposed the connections and clashes between the major players in international organised crime from the Triads to the Mafia and the South American drug cartels – a sort of Game Of Thrones with gangsters.
‘Alex Godman is a gift for an actor,’ says James. ‘He’s the son of an ex-Russian mobster whose family were exiled to London about 10 years previously and he’s on a mission to turn his back on the criminal past his family all share.’
McMafia is epic in scale, covering a global underworld network that stretches from London to Moscow, Africa to the Americas as Mexican cocaine cartels compete with Pakistani drug lords, Balkan smugglers and the Russian Mafia. And for those James Norton fans who may find organised crime a bit of a turn-off and think James was only cast to draw them in, fear not. McMafia is a fast-paced thriller that will leave you watching through your fingers.
Shot in 12 countries, it also features Juliet Rylance – best known for American Gothic and the stepdaughter of actor Mark – as Alex’s girlfriend Rebecca.
As it begins, Alex has embraced a more ethical world than his family and runs a legitimate hedge fund business with Rebecca. His parents enjoy all the lavish trappings of extreme wealth, while he and Rebecca live in a comparatively modest house as Alex tries to forge a successful life in England away from his family’s Mafia past. ‘Rebecca knows of his strange past and I think that’s why they fell in love,’ says James. ‘He’s putting roots down in London and it’s all about him identifying himself with clean money and a clean life. She will have found that very attractive. But things start to come to the surface and challenge their relationship.’
Juliet Rylance agrees. ‘The driving attraction to him is that he makes a choice not to go down the same route as his family. The bravery and courage it takes to do that is something Rebecca really admires in him. But she’s unwittingly drawn in, so the biggest conflict for her is how much she will put herself or the relationship first?’
A family tragedy forces Alex to face his past and he finds himself navigating through a terrifying labyrinth of criminals, money-launderers, corrupt politicians and intelligence agencies by doing some pretty ruthless things.
‘The gangster side does appeal,’ says James. ‘I didn’t know much about this world but I did a lot of research. I read about New York mobster Augustus Sclafani and we talked about Michael Corleone in The Godfather. Organised crime today is globalised and straddles different countries and financial
‘Viewers are taken on a journey through Alex’s eyes. It’s fascinating and sexy, and exciting’
‘His hand over my mouth, I’d hold my breath to the point where my body was spasming’
systems. It no longer sits in the city protection racket. It’s the Panama Papers, it’s corrupt presidents and prime ministers, it’s the Kremlin and the White House. That was a real eyeopener for me and I hope that’s what the show will reveal.
‘Viewers are taken on a journey through Alex’s eyes. It’s fascinating and sexy, there’s a whole underworld of people who don’t abide by the rules and do what they want. It’s kind of exciting.
‘None of the characters are stock villains – they’re all deeply sympathetic human people. And what’s great is you’re never really sure where your allegiances lie as a viewer, you’re thrown all over the place. For 95% of the time these gangsters are being parents and husbands and wives. I think it was important to get the human side across as much as the gangster side. But I think we’re all fascinated by this compelling world of the Mafia.’
Was he affected by delving into this murky world? ‘While it does humanise the people who are causing that kind of suffering and pain and exploitation, it does play with your allegiance completely,’ he admits. ‘It also makes us question our ethical footprint. Which energy provider are we using? What kind of takeaway food are we eating? Misha Glenny gave us some amazing facts in his book, like a quarter of all tomatoes are farmed in farms that use slave labour and most of the mobile phones we use have minerals in them that have been mined by children. The extent to which we’re all complicit is terrifying. We all know there are bits of clothing we wear or food we eat, that can come from very, very dark places and this show starts to question those things.’
The cast firmly believes having real Russians play Alex’s parents has added a depth to the drama. ‘The Russian actors create this extraordinary sense of family as they’re a very passionate and intense group of people,’ James says.
He was diagnosed with Type I diabetes in 2010 (he recently revealed he stitches pockets into his stage costumes to hold sugar tablets) but he’s the picture of health today and will doubtless set hearts racing again in the show. James keeps in shape with tennis, wild river swimming and hiking. He’s so well toned that directors can’t resist getting him to bare a bit of flesh on screen. How did he achieve his action-man physique for McMafia? ‘I just tried to stay healthy. We were getting six hours’ sleep a night and it was an eight-month shoot where catering was thin on the ground, so we kept pretty slim,’ he laughs.
Training in Systema, a Russian martial art, can’t have done any harm.
‘Alex is adamant that he’s making a life in England – he’s been educated here, he speaks with an English accent and his girlfriend is very, very English. Yet he spends his evenings reading Dostoevsky and going to Systema classes,’ explains James.
‘So on one hand he’s incredibly loyal and Russia is an important part of him but on the other he wants to escape it. Part of my preparation for Alex was going to these classes. They’re run in London by an amazingly eccentric man called David, who I became very close to. We’d meet in a room on our own and roll around and punch each other. I had hours of this man punching me.
‘It’s all about relaxing through the pain. He’d have his hand over my mouth and I’d hold my breath to that point where your body is spasming and you’re naturally getting terrified. That’s when you push through and find the calm and control. It was frightening. The first thing David said was, “When English people meet fear, they run. In Russia when we meet fear, we shake him by the **** ing hand.”’
James, who read theology at Cambridge before studying acting, had an idyllic childhood growing up in North Yorkshire with his parents Hugh and Lavinia, both lecturers, and his younger sister who’s now a doctor. So it’s natural he includes his father in every TV programme or film he stars in.
‘My dad’s been in War & Peace, in Grantchester and now he’s in this,’ says James. ‘He’s always been an extra but he’s in episode five of McMafia and this time he’s been promoted to a featured artiste, which he’s very pleased with. And his name is Sugar Daddy!’ he laughs. ‘He’ll eclipse my career one day.’
Unlikely, given McMafia promises to be the most talked-about show of the New Year, starting tomorrow with part two airing the following night on January 2 at the same time. ‘Your 2018 will start with a McMafia overload!’ chuckles James.