“I’m weirdly grateful to the guys who bullied me at school,” says Happy Valley actor James Norton.

Tonight, James Norton’s evil Happy Valley character Tommy Lee Royce goes head-to-head with his nemesis Catherine Cawood in what promises to be the most dramatic television finale of the year.

Bully Royce, jailed for kidnapping and multiple murders before Happy Valley viewers saw him escape two weeks ago, has hinted that he will kill the show’s leading lady, played by Sarah Lancashire.

For Norton, it was the BBC1 drama that set him on his journey to fame. He has even said that he ‘owes her everything’.

But it was the same bullying that prompted him to pursue acting, after other students made his life miserable at the £40,000-a-year Ampleforth College, dubbed the Catholic Eton, where he entered as a redheaded and freckled boy.

This pushed him towards the school’s drama department, where he became a mainstay.

Bully Royce, jailed for kidnapping and murder before Happy Valley viewers saw him escape, has hinted that he will kill the show’s leading lady, Catherine Cawood, played by Sarah Lancashire.

Norton has revealed that being bullied himself prompted him to pursue acting, after other students made his life miserable at the £40,000 a year Ampleforth College, dubbed the Catholic Eton, where he entered as a redheaded and freckled boy. . Pictured: Norton in his youth

‘I had a difficult time at school. I didn’t have a great time,’ admits Norton. ‘It wasn’t helped by the fact that I was bullied. I was bullied quite a bit for five years and I was also in boarding school so I couldn’t leave.

But I owe a lot to that school. I loved the theater, I made good friends. There is a magic in the place.

“It’s intoxicating to be a part of something so big, with that atmosphere of grandeur, when you’re in such a changing period.”

The abuse, he says, left him “socially hyper-aware.” “Possibly too much,” she adds. “I am constantly criticizing how I am affecting people and how they judge me.”

Norton’s bullying experiences were so bad that she sought psychological help to overcome them.

He says, ‘With the help of a therapist, in a weird, wicked way, I’m kind of grateful for that.

‘I’ve had a great therapist for the past four years, and he’s not from a place of drama. Luckily I don’t suffer from depression or anything like that, but it has been very, very helpful in understanding what [happened to me at school].’

While his character Royce’s backstory involves a drug-addicted mother incarcerated for drug-related crimes, Norton came from a more privileged background.

Norton is now being tipped to become the next James Bond and the talk within the film industry is that his role in Happy Valley will have increased his chances.

The son of teachers Lavinia and Hugh Norton, he was born in Lambeth, South London, before enjoying an idyllic childhood in the North Yorkshire market town of Malton.

Later he went to Cambridge University, where he obtained a first in Theology.

After attending RADA, in 2013 he was chosen for Happy Valley. Despite it being his breakout role, he had some disadvantages: he was no longer seen in the acting world as “classy.”

‘Britain is obsessed with class,’ he says, ‘and our industry is obsessed with pigeonholes. Having been to Cambridge and speaking with a specific accent, I took that risk.

“When Happy Valley came out, there were people calling my agent and saying, ‘We’ve got this part, but it’s classy, ​​I’m not sure James is right for it.’ My agent was punching the air, it’s a perfect part, a hand of aces, and you don’t get many of those throughout your career.

Indeed he was right. Then came Grantchester, then McMafia, and then Hollywood in Little Women, opposite Florence Pugh.

Norton is now being tipped to become the next James Bond and the talk within the film industry is that his role in Happy Valley will have increased his chances.

Keeping her lips tight, she tells Vera (Virgin Atlantic’s inflight magazine): “It’s flattering to be in on the conversation.”

With such success, of course, come girlfriends. First there was Jessie Buckley, star of the BBC drama War and Peace, before her split in 2017.

She was devastated by their parting, saying: ‘We’re done, yes. It was bitter.

He is a great man and we are great friends. That’s all. How diplomatic can I sound?’

Heartthrob Norton, 37, dated actress and model Imogen Poots, 33, a former pupil of Latymer School in Hammersmith, west London, whom he met in 2017 when they starred together in the play Belleville at the Donmar Warehouse.

The couple have a flat in Peckham, south-east London, and are currently renovating a house in east London. They are about to get married after Norton took a knee last February.

However, Norton is busy. He just started filming the Bob Marley biopic opposite Kingsley Ben-Adir, who plays the reggae legend and just wrapped Men Of Divorce opposite Rosanna Arquette.

He admits that filming Happy Valley has been enormously ‘special’ for him, revealing that even his friends on the other side of the Atlantic have been enthralled with the show.

“There’s a fascination with it, it’s a brilliant police procedural, but at its core it’s about family. What it translates to around the world is that everyone knows what it’s like to have families in bad shape that you can’t separate you

‘It’s great. I received a DM [social-media message] from Amy Schumer, and Bob Dylan loves the show too.’