Grantchester star Morven Christie has said there is “nothing sexy” about kissing TV drama heartthrob James Norton on set.

While she bagged the role of love interest to James’s crime-solving clergyman Sidney Chambers, she said filming the pair’s most intimate scenes was far from romantic.

In an interview for ITV’s Good Morning Britain, she said: “That always cracks me up – there is nothing at all sexy about doing a kiss in front of a camera, with 40 crew saying ‘can you tilt your head a bit’, or ‘your nose is getting a bit squashed’.”

“It is James Norton, but I know him too well, so…”

But James painted a much warmer picture of the pair’s relationship behind the scenes.

Speaking of Morven and her character, Amanda, he said: “Chemistry was there right from the start, in two minutes.

“When you are real with someone behind camera, I think that shows in front of it.”

James stole viewers’ hearts when he played doomed prince Andrei Bolkonsky in last year’s hit TV drama War And Peace, adding to his fan base since joining the first season of Grantchester in 2014.

The Cambridgeshire-based series returns this weekend for a third run, which will see Sidney torn between his devotion to the clergy and his growing relationship with Amanda.

Robson Green will also reprise his role as the second half of the investigative double act, Geordie Keating.

Grantchester returns to ITV at 9pm on Sunday.