James Norton says he broke his collarbone while rehearsing a horse sequence for the new historical drama King and Conqueror, an accident that sent him to hospital but did not halt production. The actor, who plays Harold Godwinson opposite Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s William of Normandy, recalled that the fall happened during prep and that filming continued on schedule. He later performed battle scenes while still recovering, turning the discomfort into jagged on-camera yelps.
Set to debut in the U.K. on August 24 with all eight episodes available that morning on BBC iPlayer, the series traces the rivalry culminating in the 1066 clashes at Stamford Bridge and Hastings. The U.K. launch follows a summer campaign that has included first-look images and a trailer positioning the show as a character-driven account of a political collision that recharted England.
The production was mounted by a consortium including BBC Studios and CBS Studios, with distribution handled by Paramount on the international side. Rights have been sold in more than 100 territories, with Prime Video set as the U.S. home. Creators and producers have framed the drama as a two-hander, with Harold and William written as adversaries shaped by earlier alliance and mutual calculation rather than simple hero-villain archetypes.
Norton, 40, who also has a producer credit, has spoken in recent interviews about the physical demands of the project and the pressures of staging large-scale combat under director Baltasar Kormákur. He has described the shoot’s Iceland locations, the emphasis on practical stunts, and the need to balance spectacle with the psychology of a ruler racing between crises in the north and an invasion gathering in the south. Accounts from the set indicate the collarbone break occurred just before a scheduled break, easing the production impact.
