James Norton will star in Wavewalker: Breaking Free, a TV adaptation of Suzanne Heywood's bestselling memoir. Deadline reported that Norton's production company, Rabbit Track Pictures, will produce the series, which is written by Jack Thorne. Norton said that being involved in a four-part series like Thorne's Netflix hit Adolescence made the new project "very exciting."
Heywood's memoir chronicles how, when she was seven, her parents took her on a trip sailing around the world that "became a grueling decade-long journey during which she was desperate to return home," Deadline noted.
Norton, who will play Heywood's father, had initially not planned to act in the project, but said as "a bit of boat man" who loves sailing, "it was an amazing role.... What starts as a dream as this roguish father paints this beautiful picture about this trip that is meant to take a year or two, takes about 10.... The father is on the one hand an incredibly inspiring, charismatic, imaginative and wonderful person--the father everyone dreams of having if they want a swallows and amazons lifestyle--but he is actually as well a deeply narcissistic and navel-gazing toxic person."