If it feels like it's been a little while since Edward Norton last starred in a film, at least you get double the actor in Leaves of Grass. Norton plays twins Bill and Brady Kincaid In Tim Blake Nelson's indie dramedy -- one an Ivy League professor, the other a tattooed pot dealer. Acting opposite oneself isn't an easy thing to do, but at least Norton has always been a consummate multi-tasker on his sets, often screenwriting (as he did on Louis Letterier's The Incredible Hulk, which Nelson also starred in), directing (Keeping the Faith), or producing.
Shortly after Leaves of Grass had its Austin premiere at South by Southwest, Norton rang up Movieline to discuss the perils of split-screen, his long-promised adaptation of Motherless Brooklyn, and his bemusement at becoming a fanboy headline.
We'll get to Leaves of Grass in a second, but I had something else I wanted to ask first. You produced the HBO documentary By the People: The Election of Barack Obama -- when you were privy to everything that was happening behind the scenes for so long, do you look at the signing of the health care bill and think, "Damn, I wish I still had people there so I could get the inside story?"
[Laughs] You know, after he got the nomination, I think we began to realize we were making a campaign film. You know what I mean? We were making a film about the movement that elected him, and that election was the appropriate ending for it. Also, a guy becomes president of the United States, it's not going to be the same deal as far as access. "Oh, here we are with our cameras again today!" I don't think so.
All right, so let's talk about the practical realities of acting opposite yourself in Leaves of Grass. Are you the sort of actor who likes to do something different in each take, and did you have to rein that in somewhat so that you'd know what it was you were acting against?
That's a good question, and I think you're on to it, because I do find it takes me a while. You're always exploring rhythms so that you can find this tipping point with a character, and then it gets easier, I think. I struggle around with it sometimes, and that's fine if it's a scene with only one of the twins, and even if it's a scene with both of them but a shot that's only on one of them. But if it's two of them together, you do have to get one of them to a place you're happy with and then decide on a take. You pick something that you're going to work against, and you have to make some decisions right on the spot.
That was the challenge of it with me and Tim. We'd work together before the scene and figure out [which twin] to shoot first, and prepare both sides of it so I could give myself something. It's very complicated and hard to explain, but you had to have both sides of it in your head so you could do the first one, and then you had to pick something out of your head to react to when you did the second one.
You're known to be very involved in post-production. On a film like this, where you play two roles and so much of it is in your head, were you even more of a presence in the editing room?
Tim and my partner and I all produced the movie together, and you leave the director alone initially -- they always have to take the time to get their ideas out. We just kind of waited for Tim to go in first, but no, I didn't go in and say, "This take versus that one." In some ways, we did more of that collaborating on the day of shooting, but again, only on the twin shots, because we had to choose a take. We all worked on the shape of the film at large, of course, to see what was working and what wasn't, but not in terms of my performance.
Which performance was the more difficult one?
I don't know. It's sort of like saying, "Is it harder to be Abbott or Costello?" There are things that are harder about playing straight men, and there are things that are hard about being the crazy one. I'd say they were both a lot of fun, you know what I mean?
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]