Bare with me – nudity is not in vain, says Norton
Happy Valley star asks for audiences to sit tight as he strips off for role in new play billed as ‘trauma porn’
JAMES NORTON has said the public is scared of male nudity as he prepares to appear on stage naked in his next role.
The Happy Valley star has urged audiences not to walk out of A Little Life, a stage adaptation of a novel described by some critics as “trauma porn”.
Originally written by Hanya Yanagihara, the story of four male friends includes nudity, violence, sexual and emotional abuse and self-harm.
But Norton has urged theatre-goers to stay until the end, reassuring them that none of what they will see in Ivo van Hove’s production of the play is gratuitous.
He said: “There’s still a block when it comes to male nudity, about the penis, and what it looks like, and its size and its shape – and all these things of which we as a culture are still very wary.
“We’re scared of the penis. Men, I think, we’re far more obsessed with it. I mean, women I’ve asked are like, ‘I don’t care, you know, it’s just a penis, whatever’.”
The actor confessed to feeling “massively exposed” preparing for the role, saying he had only ever appeared naked on stage before “very briefly”.
“What makes it harder right now is that we’re rehearsing, so you’re in a very light room – it’s like being in your workplace and just getting naked, which is very weird,” he said.
“In the theatre, even though there’s going to be a hundred times more people, it will be much easier, with the lights [down] and the atmosphere, it will just make sense.”
Norton, who played Tommy Lee Royce in Happy Valley, stars in A Little Life alongside Luke Thompson, from Bridgerton; Omari Douglas, from It’s a Sin; and Zach Wyatt, from Netflix miniseries The Witcher: Blood Origin. The play opens at the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End later this month.
Norton said the nudity, along with the play’s distressing scenes, served to illustrate the story of his character, Jude.
“In general, it’s just like the violence in this piece and the self harm: none of it is gratuitous – the nudity is so justified and so necessary in order to find the ultimate shame this man is put through,” he said.
“And I feel it. We did one of the scenes recently and, my god, it’s shaming, you know, I lie on the floor naked being kicked and spat on – and it doesn’t get much more degrading than that.
“I’m there, there’s no journey I have to go on. It’s really embarrassing and horrible.”
The graphic content has drawn criticism in New York, with as much as a third of the audience not returning to the auditorium after the interval. But Norton urged audience members to consider the play as a whole.
“In New York, I did hear stories of people buying tickets and publicly walking out before any of the darkness happened, just as an act of protest because they find the book so objectionable,” he said.
He added that New York “is a more divided, opinionated city, but to protest against a piece of art which you don’t like at the expense of other people’s enjoyment and the performers? Don’t do that”.