‘The Uprising’ Star Woody Norman on the ‘Power Trip’ Playing King Richard II and Going Meatless at Age 10 After Working With Joaquin Phoenix

Filming “The Uprising” gave British actor Woody Norman, who plays 14-year-old King Richard II in the historical fiction drama, a massive headache.

It turns out the only crown they had for him to use during the shoot got damaged the first day of filming. “So it didn’t fit my head,” Norman, 17, tells me over Zoom from a hotel room in Los Angeles just a few hours before the movie’s premiere at the DGA in West Hollywood. “I would leave every day with a splitting headache because it was bent. We had put foam in it, but it didn’t work. It was steel against my head.”

“The Uprising,” written and directed by Paul Greengrass, is based on the real-life Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 England. Andrew Garfield toplines the film as a fictional farmer – known only as Ploughman – who sparks and helps lead thousands of commoners on a march to protest the king in London.

In addition to the dented crown, Norman had to endure the royal wardrobe, including “really heavy” robes. “I don’t weigh much,” he tells me later on the red carpet at the premiere. “I weigh 46 kilograms [about 101 pounds] and they weigh as much as I do, so it was really really painful.”

Even so, it’s fun to be king. “It’s a power trip,” Norman says. “All of the supporting actors would go, ‘Your highness,’ and they would bow to me when I walked by. That really got to my head because they would do it every day.”

Norman’s first day shooting with Garfield was a pivotal fight scene between Ploughman and the king. “I was very intimidated,” Norman says. “It’s Andrew Garfield, you know that’s big. He immediately went, ‘I love you, and come on, come on!’ I was like, ‘OK,, we’re both actors. We can do this.’ It completely removed that sense of awe and made us both professionals. We’re here to do a job. Let’s do it together. I’m very, very grateful for that.”

The scene involved Ploughman shoving a paper scroll into the king’s mouth. “I have an Invisalign wire in my teeth,” Norman says. “The paper was in my teeth until after we wrapped. It was cool to rub my tongue on my on my teeth and go, ‘Oh, the uprising.’”

Norman first gained attention when he was just 10 years old and starred opposite Joaquin Phoenix in the 2021 Mike Mills drama “C’mon C’mon.” “One of the great men on the planet is Joaquin,” Norman says. “I don’t know if I would still be acting if I didn’t work with him.”

He continues, “I didn’t really understand what I was. I didn’t know I was an actor. I didn’t know this was a job. I was having fun, and then he made me realize that it doesn’t have to be a job. It’s a way of living. It’s a way of creating, and you know, now after working with Joaquin, I’m fully vegan because of course I am.”

Norman laughs.

“There was a interaction we had where I was eating meat and he was like, ‘Why don’t you just stop eating meat?’” he remembers. “And then I said, ‘Why don’t you stop smoking?’ He’s still smoking, so he hasn’t kept up his bit.”

Up next? Variety’s Leo Barraclough exclusively reported that Norman will star in the British urban horror thriller “Skag & Bone” along with Malachi Kirby, Tuppence Middleton, Conrad Khan, Kola Bokinni.