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
Remarkably, there's no green screen in 'Leaves of Grass' movie. There is motion control. Technically, there were all sorts of challenges, but really the soul of it is Edward Norton talent. You write these characters when you write a movie, and all you can hope for or depend on is that your actors will elevate the material.
I'm an actor, and, beyond that, the thing I do most compulsively is writing. So I come at it very much from this sense of character. I get interested in people. And I feel confident in my capacity to absorb and manifest the characteristics of people. I have a real auditory hang-up for dialogue; re-creating the way people talk really is an addiction in my brain.
Even my wife and two of my children are in "Leaves of Grass". Because I love the source material so much, it was really easy to write and an utter delight to get to direct because I had people like Edward [Norton] elevating the material and surprising me in their interpretations of all of this stuff that's so close to me.
Making really great music, making really great films, writing great books is an antidote to all of that. And, as people, as artists, some of the massive disruption that technology is causing is so exciting, the way that people can share creativity now.
In fact, the United States today keeps on making the same sort of mistakes,
Life, like poker, has an element of risk. It shouldn't be avoided. It should be faced.
Lewis and Clark's expedition is as great a story as you could ever hope to tell, and like so many people, Brad and I have both been drawn to it for years, ... We both always agreed that compressing that story into a feature-length film ruined the spirit of it ... so we sat down and said, 'How can we really do this justice?'
She's not just one of these kids who's very natural,
There was this one guy who used to come into this one club all the time, ... and he had these glasses and one of them had a bullet hole through it like it was shattered, and he never got it fixed in the months that I went into this place.
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 ran into Brenda Blethyn on a plane going to London and I went, 'Oh, I'm going to get to see you again,' ... American History X.
I think a lot of people in their average day actually imagine two sides of a conversation at one point or another. I think that the mental trick of holding two sides of a conversation in your head is actually something that we all do.
If you've got a piece and you can feel the person who's going to direct it is really made for it, if it's really special for them, then it's going to be a better-than-usual experience.
Most of the films that I've ever really responded to are ones that I feel were really involved in their times.