Edward Norton: The Movieline Interview

Had you started discussing this project with Tim before you worked together on The Incredible Hulk?

Before that -- in fact, we wrote the character of Sterns into the script of Hulk with the idea of Tim doing it. He had already given me the script [to Leaves of Grass] and we started talking about how we might raise the money to make it. It took us almost a year and a half to put it all together, and in the interim, we did Hulk.

So you got to act opposite him before he directed you -- in fact, you got to act opposite him while he was directing you, since Tim is an actor in Leaves of Grass, too. How does he change when he's wearing those different hats?

That's a good question. As an actor, working with Tim on Hulk, I think Louis and I both appreciated how he was so accommodating. He wanted to make us happy. He was just the perfect actor, wanting to throw things in, taking direction well, adjusting to last-minute changes, just the kind of thing you want. But then, as a director, he's very specific. I guess my point is that as an actor, he's very flexible and pragmatic, and as a writer/director, this whole vision came from him and it's very personal to him. When you've done something like that and the details are so specific to you, you're gonna be...I don't want to say "micro-managerial" in a negative way, but he was on top of every detail.

I think if he struggled with anything, it was acting in the movie and shrugging off his internal eye. He sometimes needed me to grab him by the shoulders and say, "OK, shake it off. Shake it off and get back in the scene. You can't act in the scene and follow the camera movements in your eyes." If you're an actor and you're directing, it's really nice to have other actors who've directed around who know what you need. You know, when I directed [Keeping the Faith], Ben Stiller had directed films and it was the same kind of thing. He would laugh and say, "You know, you can't watch the camera guy in your own scene." [Laughs] You need to be focused and have friends helping you out, because it would fry your brain otherwise.

You've been attached to write and direct an adaptation of Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn for a long time. What's the story with getting that on the screen?

It's partly a function of my time, just weeding through other things that I've made commitments to and finding the time for myself to finish the script. I'm underway with it. The nature of the story, needing to find the right way to make that film...but a lot of it has to do with my time. I'd like to clear up some other things first, but I will get around to it.

You're adapting, producing, you're involved with a number of activist causes...how do you manage all that when you get flown away for two months to work on a character in some remote location?

You always have to be careful. People check in with an actor because a film's coming out, but you have to remember, even if it seems like I'm so busy, I don't think I've ever surrendered my ability to focus on a film when I'm working on it. I think the most I'll distract myself, if I'm acting in something, is by producing it as well. One of the cool things about doing this kind of work is that you can work very intensely on something -- almost in a consuming way -- for a period of time, but you've got maybe five or six months a year to work on other things and juggle other interests. That's one of the things I like about acting, that it's not a 9-to-5, 12-month-a-year job. It's taken me a while to figure that out and juggle all that, but I think I've done it in a way that I'm not compromising the kind of focus I've always enjoyed.

You've long been acclaimed as one of the best actors of your generation. Is it funny to you, though, that now all your interviews ask you comic book questions and just want to know if you're going to be in The Avengers?

Yeah, it's funny. The funnier thing is that I don't really have the answer, you know? I don't know what [Marvel] wants to do. To do Avengers, I think you've got to have introduced more of those characters as well as Hulk and Iron Man have, and I think they're doing that. But yeah, I'm not sure I ever imagined fanboy sites desperately wanting information from me. It's kind of fun. You do these things and you realize that films mean so many different things to so many different people. It's wild. I mean, after making the Hulk, now I hear from kids. Like, real kids. Like, children. Having my friend take their kids to it and having those kids be excited for a film that's kind of made for them, that's fun.

You didn't get that on The People vs. Larry Flynt?

Oddly, no. [Laughs]

[Photo Credit: Todd Williamson/Getty Images]

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