I know James Norton, 41, as the hot Irish brute in House of Guinness on Netflix. I highly recommend that delightful series. It’s a ridiculously sexy and impossibly soapy retelling of the origins of the Guinness brewery. James, who is English, is in House of the Dragon season three (which I stopped watching after season one due to the incest of it all). In a new appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, James explained that he has misophonia, aka selective sound sensitivity syndrome. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s described as an intense reaction to specific noises, especially chewing and mouth noises. I have this too and am glad there is an increased awareness of it now. I’ve also met other people who have it and that’s validating. Here’s more of what he told Seth Meyers:
He nearly fainted smashing a table for House of the Dragon
Every other actor in “House of the Dragon” seems to get some sexy, big battle, and I just get to fight a table. And the table won! I had to really smash that thing.You’re asked to do that over and over again, and you have to tell your body [to] get into a state of fury and then go back to normal and have a cup of tea. Your head is spinning. I actually nearly fainted that day. I had a really strange out-of-body experience.
On his misophonia and how it relates to his character hating smells
Smells, I’m okay with. I have a real thing with noise. I think it’s called misophonia or something? If I had the choice, I would ban all popcorn from theaters. Anything which is crunchy makes me feel really agitated.Now, people know me well enough. They’ll be like, “I’m not allowed to chew, am I?” I’m sorry. I’ve been in theater – I’ve asked people to breathe quietly.
You know, when someone has a nose whistle and you can hear it, I can’t think about anything on the stage. And then, some poor guy was chewing gum and I was like, “You’ve gotta stop chewing that [bleep] gum!” And he’s like, “Dude, I’m trying to give up smoking. I’m sorry, it’s Nicorette.” I’ve become Ormund, I’ve become a demon.
[From Late Night with Seth Meyers]
James acts on stage, and he gets annoyed when people eat chips or use their phones, which is understandable. He also told cute stories about how proud his parents are of him. His dad has filmed him with a camcorder while he’s in theater productions and has been a background actor in his shows.
It takes nerve and self-awareness to admit this, and celebrities help our cause. Other celebrities who have misophonia include Kelly Ripa and Kate Hudson. Only people chewing or making mouth noises bother me. My dog makes so many noises drinking water, eating, and cleaning himself, and none of that gets to me.
Oh and James said he can fall asleep anywhere. Relatable! I’m definitely following his career now.
Photos credit: Ben Blackall/Netflix, Theo Whiteman/HBO, Andres Poveda/StillMoving.Net for Netflix, Justin Ng/Avalon, Oleksii Ovcharenko/Avalon, Cat Morley/Avalon, James Warren/Bang Showbiz/Avalon
I have been battling with a coworker who chews loudly and moans and make other sorts of noises. When we’re on site most of the time I use eaebuds and play my lousy screams music right into my head but meetings and things I can’t do that. It drives me to rage, I have to leave the room. Ive talked to my supervisor about this and was kindly reminded everyone has a right to eat and shot down my idea of scheduled meal times (like.not during meetings when I can’t self soothe with Korn). He is also aware of my difficulty and doesn’t care, its not his problem, he thinks I made it up. I loathe him.
I think James Norton would make a fine James Bond 👌🏻
Yeah, it’s called misophonia. I am like that about leaf blowers. I have also noticed that my hearing is much more sensitive in the morning. It can be a real struggle.
I’m also really grateful that I work remotely.