![]() So it was an interesting kind of instant conflict to play: the cynic versus the tormented. It's interesting because obviously he's a cynic and yet he's probably the most - other than Catherine - he's the most affected by that world, that Swedenborg world. I think we probably got on a little too well, the directors sometimes had to basically chastise us like two primary school children. But I think often with that very heavy, heavy material, you often kind of offset it with just a lot of fun. ![]() Like it's no doubt that sometimes you really feel the material and the weight of it. We did a lot of press and a lot of it was spent describing how much fun we had, and I think a lot of people were expecting us to have had a really grueling time because obviously the content of the material. What was it like working with Amanda Seyfried to build that onscreen relationship? RELATED: The Nevers Sets Record for an HBO Max Original Series Debut And it was important and exciting to do a movie which, post-#MeToo, explored in great detail and nuance that very kind of assumed and I guess endemic level of misogyny which the world lived with for so long, particularly in those parts of the world. Unfortunately, these types of individuals obviously still exist, and he is the classic symptom of that pre-#MeToo sense of a man is entitled to the career and the woman must live in relation to that man and must make the sacrifices which are required in order to get that man his career. So, it was just tapping into all of those things.Īnd what was interesting was that it was very timely post-#MeToo. And I think the more she is able to thrive, the more he feels his inadequacy. And as I said before, it was tapping into sort of the limitation which he felt, which he obviously grappled with, and then particularly in the face of Catherine who's such a force and such a positive force and such a competent and brilliant mother and brilliant artist. ![]() So I feel like he's partly a product of his upbringing and the period he's living in. And I think for me, a lot of it, as I said, was from the societal constraints and pressures which he's under.Īnd also I guess part of his family, we meet his mum and dad and they've got some fairly flagrantly racist, prejudiced views on homosexuality, and I'm sure that's not the end of the kind of discriminatory ways that he's grown up in. It's all about where that misguidance and that hate and ill feeling comes from. But as far as the character is concerned, you can't tap into the evil of a character. The Hudson River School of painters was quite new to me and that was really pleasurable parts of the research to acquaint myself with those incredible painters and become a kind of mini college art historian in a few weeks. How did you go about developing him?Ī lot of what I worked with was acquainting myself with the period, the area, I'd never been to that part of upstate New York. George has quite a trajectory from where he starts to where he ends. So all in all a very tragic, tragic man, I think. And the mixture of all those things - that sense of inadequacy and pressure and weakness and add a deep misogyny - basically leads to this perfect storm where he goes crazy with self-loathing, to the point where he's willing to put the people that he supposedly loves in such jeopardy. And he has this just extraordinary pressure on himself through his family and, at the time and the class he's from, to forge this career, which he's just clearly not capable of. The idea that his wife should be empowered and have a career of her own, it's totally alien to him. He's a sad, slightly tragic man who I think represents this old-fashioned misogyny and fear. The man himself before that happens, I mean he's a lost soul. I mean, what was interesting and challenging was to work out where the character George and his actions and agency ended and then how much the kind of echoes and the presence of entities in the house kind of took over. James Norton: He's a bit of an enigma, old George. RELATED: The Nevers' Mid-Season Finale Trailer Reveals Details of Amalia's Origin StoryĬBR: How would you describe George Claire? ![]() Norton spoke to CBR about his work as the complex, secretive George Claire in Things Heard & Seen, being part of the bizarre world of The Nevers and the unique challenges presented by both projects.
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