James Norton Double Digest: Actor Boards 'House of the Dragon,' 'Wife & Dog'

James Norton's exit from Grantchester was messier than anyone would have liked. At the end of his three-season contract, he declined to re-sign for another season, delaying the show's fourth season by nearly a year as an agreement was worked out where he would be written out after the show's first two episodes. At the time, we compared it to the exit of Dan Stevens from Downton Abbey. (Though it was less violent, no one got so angry at him for refusing to come back for Season 4 that they had him die in a gruesome car crash.) However, at this point, Stevens was starring in Beauty & The Beast and Marvel's Legion, a level of success it seemed doubtful Norton could replicate, especially when his first two projects out of the box were Little Women and The Nevers. However, the return of Happy Valley for a third and final season and the upcoming series King & Conqueror have helped rectify that, and now he has two more high-profile projects on the books.

The first, announced on January 31, 2025, is that Norton is joining the Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon. Though the prequel is not nearly as popular as the original series, its ratings are still, far and away, some of the highest for an HBO program. Moreover, Norton joins the series as Ormund Hightower, Lord of Old Town, the nephew of Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) and cousin of Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke), Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney), and Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell). This puts him squarely on the side of Team Green, and though he won't be riding dragons, he will be leading armies.

Ormond also survives several battles where he is the head of the column, at least in the novels. Though the series has deviated from the books since Season 1, Norton will likely play a significant role in the show's third season and its planned fourth and final installment once it is formally greenlit.