In House of Guinness, which you can watch with a Netflix subscription, James Norton plays the loyal henchman for the Guinness family, Sean Rafferty. Rafferty is a no-nonsense character who doesn’t shy away from doing the dirty work for his employers. One of the most memorable moments comes in Episode 7 of the Steven Knight-led show when the Raffery and the family begin “cleaning up” the docks around the brewery.
The inspiration for Norton’s reaction in the scene, which features Rafferty (one of the many very cool characters on the show) walking away from an explosion, leaving one of the old tenements in rubble, came from a very unlikely place: a song and a video by Andy Samberg and The Lonely Island called “Cool Guys Don’t Look At Explosions.”
Rafferty Looks Back
In an interview with Netflix UK, Norton explained where the idea for his reaction comes from, saying:
We were shooting the scene, and my business partner sent me a song from Andy Sandberg, which is [‘Cool Guys Don’t Look At Explosions’]. It’s basically a cut of all men and women in history and film with explosions behind them, and none of them look back.
The video, one of many great videos from Lonely Island, which features Samberg on co-lead vocals (as Bruce Springsteen) alongside Will Ferrell (as Neil Diamond), and director JJ Abrams on keyboards, is exactly as Norton describes it. Dozens of famous explosions from movies where the heroes and villains never look back at their handiwork. Norton and his partner decided Rafferty was a cut above, explaining:
We decided there and then, we’re like, Rafferty is cooler than all [of them], and he does look back.
Of course, they took multiple shots, but in the end, it was one with Rafferty casually looking back that was kept in the show. Norton went on:
We did a few versions of the scene where I didn’t look back, and then the last couple, like, Rafferty’s in a league of his own. He looks back, but he doesn’t react. So the cool guys don’t look back. Rafferty does.
Fans of the show, which hit the 2025 TV schedule last month, know how “cool” Rafferty is, both in a “cool customer” kind of way and in a character way. He’s a henchman that is easy to root for, because he is so cool, but he is also someone you’d never want to get crossways with. He’s unflinching and occasionally cruel.
His reaction (or non-reaction) to the explosion that almost certainly killed people says it all. He does what needs to be done, in the only way he knows how, brutally and decisively. He’s not doing it for glory, and he’s too cool for the traditional hero shot.