TV Star Suffers Bloody Injury While Filming Intense Scene

Happy Valley star James Norton said he suffered a dangerous injury while filming an escape scene on the U.K. crime drama. During the Jan. 22 episode, Norton’s Tommy Lee Royce took a chance to escape a courtroom while awaiting trial. The escape looked seamless, but it was not easy in real life.

The scene required Norton to climb up to get out of the enclosed defendant’s box. Tommy then got away from the police. Thanks to a change of clothes and a bicycle left behind by his henchmen, the criminal sped away. In an interview with BBC Breakfast on Jan. 24, Norton, 37, recalled how hard it was to climb out of the box.

“That’s not that low of a thing to scale, it’s high,” Norton said, via Express. “As you get older, stunts get a little more disconcerting because you’re always pumped full of adrenaline and then you think you can do anything. Then you do it and at the end, you’re like, ‘Ow.’”

“Yesterday I looked down and my leg was bleeding,” Norton continued. “There’s an energy about Tommy, there’s a kind of animal vital and unstoppable force. So when he’s allowed to let rip like he was yesterday, it’s so fun.”

Happy Valley is a crime drama filmed and set in the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire, and created by Sally Wainwright. The series focuses on Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire), a police sergeant living who lives with her sister Clare (Siobhan Finneran) after divorcing her husband and the suicide of her teenage daughter Becky. Norton’s Tommy is the villain who raped and impregnated Becky which led to her decision to take her life. The first series aired in 2014, with the second airing in 2016. After waiting seven years, fans finally caught up with the story when series three debuted on BBC One on Jan. 1. The series is available on Crackle and AMC+ in the U.S.

Norton also recently shared his experience with type 1 diabetes. He said he injects himself with insulin 15 times a day, notes Mirror. He said his diagnosis was “traumatic” because he is a “terribly hypochondriac anyway.” He was 22 when he began feeling symptoms, like losing weight and feeling tired. His little sister and mother also have type 1 diabetes.

“It was traumatic because I’m a terrible hypochondriac anyway,” Norton told Good Health in 2019. “But it was also manageable because I had the best role model in my sister, who was training to be a doctor. I called her so many times, worrying about things, which was strange, because I’d always been the protective older brother, keeping an eye on Jessie at parties. Having type 1 was particularly hard for her through her teenage years when she had so many other things to contend with. But then, when it was my turn, she got me through it, too.”