There is plenty that is special about the Irish “Nowhere Special.”

A drama about death, fatherhood and a boy’s future, “Nowhere Special” stars James Norton as terminally ill John, a single father who must find a home for his four-year-old son Michael.

Serious yet never depressing, the Dublin-set “Nowhere Special” charts the father’s journey with Irish social services who must ensure the boy has a home when the time comes.

“I read the script. I loved it. It moved me to tears,” Norton, 38, began in a Zoom interview.  “But the obvious challenge from the start was that the whole film — the whole project really! — relied on casting Michael the son.

“Honestly, it could have been a disaster. We had great casting directors outside Belfast who put an open invitation out to families and got lots of applications that were whittled down.

“Eventually, we found Daniel Lamont, who had never been on a film set before or in a theater and was four years old. Somehow Daniel managed to understand what it is to be an actor and transform into a different personality in a different body. He’d bounced around the set as Daniel and they call ‘Action!’ and he would transform into Michael without really understanding what was going on.

“Two weeks into the film, he turned to his mom and said, ‘When do we start filming?’ So on one level he clearly understood but on another, much more instinctive level, he was absolutely brilliant.

“He made this film possible. Because he was so present. You know, usually with kids, they get distracted and look in another direction and we have to cut around them and cobble something together.

“But with Daniel, we were able to put the camera on him and have these amazing long, drawn-out duologs and two-handed scenes.  He kept his focus and gave a beautiful performance which meant I just had to react.

“I was moved to tears watching this little boy process the idea of death in front of me. He made my life very easy.”

Today there’s an awareness of the responsibility filmmakers and cast have working with a child.

“You have to be careful. Luckily, he has incredible, very down to earth parents who were there every single day on set. With Daniel we made sure the subject matter was handled very carefully. It was a happy set, a place of play and imagination.”

Norton has remained in touch. “What’s really encouraging, I got a message from his mom saying that as a six year old he’s giving acting a rest because he wants to concentrate on his karate and football.”

“Nowhere Special” opens May 2