Edward Norton
Edward Norton
Edward Harrison Nortonis an American actor, filmmaker and activist. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards for his work in the films Primal Fear, American History Xand Birdman. He also starred in other roles, such as Everyone Says I Love You, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Fight Club, Red Dragon, 25th Hour, Kingdom of Heaven, The Illusionist, Moonrise Kingdomand The Grand Budapest Hotel. He has also directed and co-written films, including his directorial debut, Keeping the Faith. He has...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth18 August 1969
CountryUnited States of America
What has always been most interesting about acting to me personally is that it affords you the chance to shift gears, both in terms of the experiences you get to have through doing it, but also the different kinds of things you get to represent.
I hear about actors being exterior actors and actors being instinctual actors and I always think it's crap. Anybody who knows anything about it knows that good actors do both - they do inside-outward and they do outside-inward. You can't not do both.
I'm not a very methodologically pure actor. Almost every time that I start, I feel completely at sea. Always at the beginning I feel like a fraud, really, because I'm never sure how to get started.
There's a lot of romanticisation of the intuitive actor and method acting and all kinds of notions about getting inside a character and coming out from there.
As an actor, I don't have any politics. As an actor, I'm driven more by an authentic - I would say an obsessive-compulsive-disorder level-fixation on mimicry, tonality of voice, to literally imitate something until I can just disappear into it.
No, I'm not a very methodologically pure actor.
Every little thing that people know about you as a person impedes your ability to achieve that kind of terrific suspension of disbelief that happens when an audience goes with an actor and character he's playing.
I've never acted before in a movie I've directed. This felt like the time to do it just because the " Leaves of Grass" movie itself is so much of a platform for the lead actor. It's really written for an exciting performance and it really depends on the audience watching an extraordinary actor having a great time pulling off this feat. It makes sense to me as a director to act in support of that.
The more you do your homework, the more you're free to be intuitive. But you've got to put the work in.
We're so hung up on this notion that we have some obligation to help the struggling black man, you know. Cut him some slack until he can overcome these historical injustices. It's crap. I mean, Christ, Lincoln freed the slaves, like, what? 130 years ago. How long does it take to get your act together?
I think it's pretty unequivocal, this character does not get off the hook for his actions on any level.
We are thrilled to be collaborating with Edward on this labor-of-love. They're a very daring company and have a great knack for communicating with audiences about challenging films.
She's not just one of these kids who's very natural,
Life, like poker, has an element of risk. It shouldn't be avoided. It should be faced.