007? James is happy just to be a soap star

I KNOW he’s led a privileged life but does Cambridge-educated actor James Norton really not know what to do with a bucket of suds?

Norton, 36, who many have tipped as the next James Bond, plays a tattooed window cleaner from Northern Ireland called John in new film Nowhere Special – and says director Uberto Pasolini put him in touch with a squeegee expert to help him master the techniques.

I can’t testify to the McMafia star’s cleaning skills but James – who attended top public school Ampleforth College – certainly got to grips with his character’s Northern Irish accent. The star, right, says: ‘The best compliment was on the first Friday night, when we went out for drinks with the crew.

‘I spent most of the time on set in the accent, and then I turned up at the bar and I didn’t look like John – I had my floppy hair and sounded like I do. It took them an hour… a lot of the crew were like, “Who the hell are you?”’