James Norton was rushed to hospital with a broken collarbone after being thrown from a horse on the set of his new TV show, DailyMail reports.
The 40-year-old actor, James Norton has revealed he suffered a painful accident during rehearsals for his historical BBC series King and Conqueror – set around Britain’s Battle of Hastings in 1066 – and he was left nursing a broken bone throughout the rest of the shoot.
Speaking at the show’s premiere at the BFI, he said: ‘In some of the battle scenes in the latter half of the shoot, I’m yelping very loudly and the yelps are pretty authentic.
‘I fell off a horse and I landed on my shoulder. Actually it was a remarkably quick recovery and it didn’t affect shooting.
‘Luckily we dealt with it. The collarbone recovers very quickly. It was just quite painful.’
James Norton went on to reveal he was most scared about having to tell the show’s executive producer Kitty Kaletsky about his fall from the horse.
James Norton added: ‘I was doing all my own stunts but I had an amazing stunt double who I was in the hospital with.
‘There was like a moment where we said: “We’re f*****. Are you going to call Kitty, or am I?”‘
The actor went on to reveal there was another nasty moment on set when he had to bite the nose of an extra during a fight scene and he clamped his teeth down too hard.
James Norton explained: ‘I literally bit his nose. The poor guy. I went through his skin. It was terrible.
‘The following day the guy came into rehearsals with a huge bandage.
‘It was like some kind of comedy. But I was just getting really into it.’
James Norton revealed the nose-biting scene was thought up by director Baltasar Kormakur at the last minute and it was almost cut after the accident, but the actor is pleased the gory moment made the final cut.
The McMafia star previously insisted the show is not a ‘cosy’ period drama and the shoot was ‘brutal’.
He told Deadline.com: ‘I was covered in mud and blood and layers of leather, it was a brutal shoot…
‘[Kormakur] had a very clear vision around the tone and the aesthetic – from the very beginning he wanted to avoid this being a clean, cozy period drama…
‘It took me hours every day to get ready because I had layer after layer of leather and chain mail.
‘It paid dividends because you can see everything is so authentic.
‘That was something [Kormakur] was very stubborn about and it was so worth it in the end.’