Everyone Says I Love You
Interview
**Attention webmasters: DO NOT LINK DIRECTLY TO
THESE AUDIO CLIPS!! (see below)**
"I have sung in my life with groups and things but I took triple threat
off my resume a long time ago. I can't dance and don't sing really. I
figured that if he was going to sing that I was at least safe. I would be
somewhere between him and Goldie [Hawn], at least. He was very articulate
about the fact that he did not want people to sing with a lot of polish. We
actually recorded a few takes which, modesty aside, I did my absolute best
Sinatra and they sounded good and we didn't opt for those. He said pull it
back a little make it a little more like a guy singing on the street. And
we actually sort of went for that. He was very consciously trying to make
it a bit more pedestrian and not have it be a grand sort of musical."
"He's very, very loose and encourages a lot of spontaneity. Off the top
of my head, the scene where I present the ring and she [Drew Barrymore's
character Skylar] swallows it. From the time she swallows the ring out, we
made most of that scene up. And we did it lots of different ways and there
were funny lines that got lost when a glass broke or whatever. He's
terrific in that way. He cuts you loose and if he loves it he says
[imitates Woody Allen's voice], 'You know, I loved that," and if doesn't,
it's all very calm- I think that was a little too much or it was killing
the pace. But it's a terrific way to work, especially since he shoots
things in long, long takes. You tend to almost play a scene through, often
play a full scene through in one take on one of these things. He's very
theatrical in that way so you can really get a rhythm going and funny
banter. He's very, very relaxed. He creates a very, very sort of loose and
fun working environment. I had a great time."
"I met him twice. I met him the first time, total elapsed time of 4
minutes, I would say. 'Hello, will you look at this scene.' 'Yes.' Go out,
read the scene, come in, do the scene with him or with someone else with him
watching. And he said, literally, he said [imitates Woody Allen's voice]
"That was, that was terrific. That was just terrific. So you live in LA?"
[normal voice] 'No, I live in New York.' [Woody Allen voice] 'Oh Jesus!
Good for you. Alright well, I'll see you later.' And that was it. That was
the whole the whole thing. And then I went back, based on that apparently
he was very excited [laughs]. And then I went back another time and spend
about another three minutes with him where we read different scenes and
right at the tail end he said 'By the way, do you sing at all?' and I said,
'Yeah, I can sing alright. Why?' [Woody Allen voice] 'I'm not looking for
Pavarotti. It's just something I'm playing with.' And then he said, 'Okay,
I think I'd like you to do this,' and I got up off the floor and said thank
you. That was it. It was an alarmingly productive process. It was not a
long, drawn out affair."
I literally have spent hours with friends talking about that over the
years. I think it's a combination of both his filmmaking style, which is
different. He tells stories in a nonlinear way. I think he's America's
reigning king of the idiosyncratic story. He does not tell stories in a
traditional way. And that is great. So I think that the combination of his
filmmaking style with his humor and then his particular sensibility produces
something unique. I felt like I learned a lot just watching him make the
film, just in a filmmaking sense. He shoots things in long, long single
shots. He told me that editing his films is very easy because he generally
has a string of master shots to run together. He doesn't even really have
to edit because he doesn't shoot angles or coverage or repeat scenes with
close-ups on you. On the whole. I mean he does. That makes for a different
kind of rhythms within the scenes. People talk about the rhythms of Woody's
scenes and the loose talk and the extemporaneous humor. I think that comes
from putting the camera on all of us and just letting us talk. You can't
achieve that when cutting between people. I love that. It's a really fun
way to work, but also, I love watching it. I like the way that he'll set up
a frame and he'll leave it. He'll let people enter the frame. He's not
afraid to have people walk off the camera and hear their voice off there
and come back in. It produces that distinctive feel in his films. There's
a much more spontaneous feel to them. And some of it is just breaking out
of convention just that little bit."
It changes the landscape of your professional opportunities totally,
something like Primal Fear. It was a phenonally oppportunity and things
preceeds out of that because it's a fairly small community, this industry,
it's a wonderful, maybe undeserved, instant credibility. And what does is
it doesn't mean that people are handing me things and saying 'Please do
this.' On some level that happening, but more to me, what exciting is it
makes it no longer an issue of whether or not you're going to be able to
to get in and try to get the role. An opportunity to at least have access
to proving that you can do something and that you can't ask for more than
that as an actor. open opportunity to prove for something different. And
that's wonderful."
Note to all webmasters
Do not link directly to audio/video clips on the edward-norton.org server.
I am allowed only a certain amount of traffic by my website host. Linking
directly my files, especially to large audio/video clips, dramatically
increases my traffic. The money to run this site comes out of my pocket
alone and I make no money off the site (nor am I trying to do so). So
either link to my pages or upload the clips to your own server. I posted
these clips so people would have an opportunity to hear interviews and see
trailers that would otherwise be unavailable to them. I am not here to pay
for your website. Please be courteous so that everyone can enjoy these clips.
Source of the Clips
Hollywood.com used to have this
great section called "Movie Talk" with Real Player clips of round table
interviews taken at movie press junkets. However, nothing on the internet is eternal and this
section was eventually removed. Early on, I had tape recorded the clips and I
finally dug up the tape and recreated the clips. So the sound quality is the
best I can do. The Hollywood.com clips were not an unabridged record
of the press junkets- the reporters' questions are not included and the clips
themselves may not be EN's complete answers on the topic. How do I know this?
I obtained a copy the entire round table interview for Fight Club and
compared them to the Hollywood.com Fight Club clips. For the most part,
the differences are minor. This is probably more than you really wanted to know.
Anyway, there are similar interview clips for
American History X and
Rounders, as well as the uncut round table interview for
Fight Club
If you have new information on Edward Norton (and you can provide a
verifiable and reputable source), please email me-
Susan
Note: Articles and images have been posted without permission for noncommercial and nonprofit use
with no intention of copyright infringement. The purpose of this reprinting is to disseminate correct information about the
actors, films, and studios. I have included author names and links to sources whenever possible.
|
