Larry King Live Weekend

Listen to the Edward Norton interview!

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Aired November 21, 1998 - 9:00 p.m. ET

Danny DeVito, Edward Norton and Bert Fields Discuss their Most Recent Projects

Edward Norton segment

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Welcome back to LARRY KING LIVE.

He seems so part of the American culture it's hard to believe he's only made five films: Primal Fear, The People Vs. Larry Flynt, Everyone Says I Love You, Rounders and now American History X in which he plays a Neo-Nazi. He's Edward Norton.

Why did you take this part?

EDWARD NORTON, ACTOR: Well, two different reasons. One, just the role itself, the character itself, was just a very rich challenge. It's not even just because one manifestation or one part of him is a very, very extreme sort of, you know, far, far away from me. But more because of the emotional distance he covers. I like any character that -- the challenge of it is to present a broad scope.

KING: Doesn't just dismiss him as a right-wing...

NORTON: Exactly.

KING: Is that harder to play?

NORTON: Well, yes. That's -- I mean, anything where you're asked to sort of deal with the complex humanity of somebody is more challenging, and in this -- you, in this movie, you see this guy in high school in this kind of horrific nightmarish mode as a skinhead gang leader and then post prison sort of experience has a very changed person -- emotionally changed and intellectually changed person. And that's just purely as an actor, that's a very rich challenge. But I think that I wouldn't have -- in this case I would not have felt comfortable because of the nature of him as a character if I hadn't felt that the piece as a whole had something worthwhile to say -- and I did. So that was a big part of the...

KING: It moves audiences, right? You don't go into this whistling Dixie?

NORTON: No, I don't. I get very moved still watching it. We've had a unanimously -- I just haven't run into anybody who hasn't said that it was very wrenching for them to watch and moving at the end.

KING: Yet at the same time compelling, right? Do you want to see this film?

NORTON: I hope so. I think that as you said, it's -- you know, it has a certain message that I'm very pleased about. I think it has a very unequivocal statement at the end of the enormous self- destructive, tragic cost of making these choices. A lot of people are converted to the message already, that racism and violence have a bad consequence. But for those people, as you kind of implied, I think there's another challenge, like Liz Smith or something wrote, everyone thinks racism is bad, why should we have to sit through this movie. Well -- but it's much more -- it's also very disturbing to have to confront the humanity of a person who commits an act like this because these things are happening every day.

KING: Also everyone doesn't think racism is bad?

NORTON: Exactly.

KING: Racist don't.

NORTON: Well for some people you're going to hope that like any good tragedy, there's a lesson at the end of this movie. But for other people, it's worthwhile to confront the complex dynamics that create a person like this.

KING: You went to what Yale degree in history?

NORTON: Yes.

KING: Grew up in Columbia, Maryland -- your grandfather was James Rouse. I told you I knew him, one of the great genius developers in this country -- developed Harborplace, South side -- the South Shore Ferry.

NORTON: South Street Seaport.

KING: Seaport in New York.

NORTON: Faneuil Hall in Boston.

KING: Faneuil Hall. One would have guessed you would not be an actor with this background.

NORTON: Well, I -- there was not show business people in my family at all-- not at all. But I think he had a healthy sense of...

KING: Flair.

NORTON: Of flair and show business. He was famous for his outlandish dress. I'm sure he was wearing some sort of terrible modest jacket.

KING: Cummerbund -- red.

NORTON: But he was and my family are very -- they're the people who keep us all in business -- just great supporters of the arts and believers in the arts. Two of his sons, my uncles -- ones a musician and one is a painter. So there was a lot of art and stuff.

KING: Did Primal Fear come to you, how? That was your first -- that's where we got introduced to you, right?

NORTON: Yes, on a film level.

KING: Great movie.

NORTON: I had been -- I had been working for a lot of years in New York theater and I had come close to being in some other films, but that was the one that I sort of got a shot to take on. And --, you know, it changes the...

KING: Now there was a complex role.

NORTON: Yes. It's a similar kind of thing though. It's like...

KING: He's good; he's bad; he's good; he's bad; he's bad.

NORTON: Yes -- exactly that's a...

KING: That's a wonderful turn that movie.

NORTON: It was terrific. Again, there's nothing more than you can ask for than something that covers...

KING: In "The People Vs. Larry Flynt" you play the dogged often discouraged lawyer.

NORTON: Yes -- the resident idealist in the picture. Yes, he -- of course, that's a different kind of challenge because that's a real guy -- Alan Isaacman and a very brilliant attorney.

KING: Hard to play someone who you meet, right?

NORTON: It is. But at the same time, again, interesting because you're having to distill a certain part of people's lives. You can't come full scope of it, so you got to get in with them and try to figure out what were the key moments. And like with him, it was really interesting finding out that there was this certain moment where he almost good fed up with Larry and had to confront their relationship and said, you know -- even when he got this opportunity to go to the Supreme Court said, I'm not going with you, because you're going to throw an orange at the judge and had to sort of have this moment where they agreed -- anyway, I love that film.

KING: And Everyone Says I Love You -- you sang that opening number, in a Woody Allen musical. You were you fantastic -- do you sing?

NORTON: Yes, I sang growing up. I didn't -- I did musical theater as a kid and stuff like that.

KING: Did you know what you were getting into when you took -- because usually with Woody he just calls and you...

NORTON: No he didn't tell anybody. He asked everyone if they wanted to be in it. Everyone said yes and it was only a month before production I got a call from his music supervisor, Dick Hyman who's like the legendary Jazz guy and he says, we're going to get you together with a vocal coach. I'm going to send you sheet music. And I said what. He said, well this is musical we're doing. I went and put a paper bag over my head and hyperventilated for 10 minutes. Then I came back and I was OK.

KING: Did you like working with Woody?

NORTON: I had a great time working with Woody.

KING: Good director?

NORTON: Fantastic director and all these things you hear about like doesn't say anything -- I found none of it to be true. I thought he was a highly engaged, very specific in his notes -- lot of fun.

KING: Edward Norton is the guest. The new film is American History X -- great actor.

We'll be right back.

KING: Our guest is Edward Norton. He stars in American History X.

He's currently filming The Fight Club with Brad Pitt and he's going to produce, direct and star in a romantic comedy Keeping the Faith. The other movie was Rounders with Matt Damon. Was that fun?

NORTON: That was a blast. Yes, that's the kind of one you do almost just...

KING: A gambling movie.

NORTON: ... to spend some time in the life of it, you know? We spent a couple months getting coached intensively by some of the top players, both known and underground.

KING: Did it make you a better player?

NORTON: Yes. My game's decent. I don't think you want my game now, Larry.

KING: You get into -- you go to Beverly Hills to Mr. Challenge and you take them?

NORTON: Yes. Larry Flynt has a big game, actually.

KING: Does he?

NORTON: I can't afford Larry's game.

KING: Tell me about working -- what's The Fight Club with Brad Pitt about?

NORTON: It's the story of two young guys who start, like, an amateur boxing club for sort of disadvantaged guys, and a woman who comes between them, who Helena Bonham Carter plays.

KING: Do you like Brad, working with him? Have you started it? You've started it, right?

NORTON: We're almost finished. We've got about a month to go. We've been going for a long time, five months.

KING: Good actor?

NORTON: Brad is -- we've had so much fun, and he -- he's -- he's intensely hard-working guy, incredibly serious, committed. I could...

KING: His face can get in the way sometimes. I mean, no one should be that good looking?

NORTON: Yes. Yes, you know, and he's got -- he drinks coffee and smokes cigarettes and eats whatever he wants and he's, like, leaner than everybody around, so -- yes. But, no, you know what? This is the kind of thing, I think, he's just got that glint in his eye while we're doing this one, and it's a really funny character, and we're having a blast.

KING: And you're going to do it -- you're going to produce, direct and star? You're not 30 yet.

NORTON: I got ten more months in my 20s, so I'm really trying to live it up.

KING: Keeping the Faith Original script?

NORTON: Yes, it is. In fact, one of my oldest friends, my old writing partner from college and everything, he wrote it, and we're making it and...

KING: You want to direct more? You want to do more?

NORTON: Well, you know, not -- not -- not just for the sake of doing it. In this case, I wanted to do it because we've been working on it for such a long time that there comes a point where you feel like you know the story that you're trying to tell, and you don't want to just fob it off on somebody else, and...

KING: A good director is a storyteller, right?

NORTON: Yes, exactly. And there's a point at which you know the story that you want to tell, and so I felt like -- and it's got modest parameters. I didn't think it was too...

KING: Eighty million dollars.

NORTON: Yes. No, no, this isn't like doing, you know, doing some big action-adventure movie for your first time out.

KING: One gathers from just watching you that you're much more interested in your craft than in stardom? Is that a correct observation?

NORTON: I'd say that's a fair statement, yes.

KING: You don't care if Edward Norton is the world's best-known actor and is on the front cover of Time?

NORTON: No. No, I -- and I, you know, in fact, I think that stuff can get in the way. I mean, I've said on other occasions I think that there's actors that I really admire who, on a lot of levels, I think what they're able to do is create these distinct memorable characters that have their own life separate from -- from -- you know, they live in all of our collective, sort of, unconscious without the actor inflicting it or getting in the way of it. And you know, the Ratzo Rizzos and the Travis Bickels and the Hannibal Lecters. I mean, those -- the Stanley Kowalskis...

KING: They're with us.

NORTON: They live independent of the people who did them, and that to me is -- that's what I always was grateful for as an audience member.

KING: And that's what you're out there...

NORTON: So, to the degree that I've -- I can create things that are -- that you remember, like a guy like Worm in Rounders or something like -- and you're thinking about that and not about me, and I'm not in the way of your experience of it.

KING: You don't get in the way of the parts?

NORTON: Yes, I don't want to get in the way.

KING: Is it difficult to find -- like in American History, you have to find -- you have to like that person because he doesn't hate himself?

NORTON: He -- exactly. Well, you can never -- you can never approach a character by judging him from the outside. You've always got to decide, you know, even if you're going to play an evil character, even if, you know -- and this character, I wouldn't call him evil. Indeed, he commits some evil acts, but it's very much a redemptive story. It's a story about how he finds his way through to kind of reclaiming his life, and...

KING: Let's say you were playing Hitler. You have -- Hitler didn't hate Hitler...

NORTON: Yes, but think about Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List. There's an unredeemed character. He is the villain of the piece, a monster. But you have to decide, "OK, I think there's a reason to do this. It plays a role within a drama that I think has a good point to it, and so I'm going to serve the piece by functioning as that villain." And then, you don't judge it. You don't say "Oh, he's awful." You get inside him and try to -- try to get in under the skin of their motivations and what it is that drives them. What's their angle on the world.

And so a character like this one in American History X, it's -- the challenge of it -- it's not necessarily to have sympathy yourself with what they're saying, but you've got to try to have empathy with the same human dynamics and motivations that are moving them to whatever acts they're committing, and I think...

KING: We are complex?

NORTON: Yes, they're complex people. And I think, interestingly, like -- you know this woman who works at Amnesty International. She's a black woman, and she came up to me and said, "You know, the reason I liked what you did with that character was it made you confront the humanity of it," and she said, "ironically, that's what I've been watching happen to young black men for years is," you know, "they join a gang, people want to write them off." It's easier for people to write the people who do violent things or commit awful acts off, and it's much more challenging to confront the complex humanity, just as you said, so...

KING: Look forward to many visits.

NORTON: Thanks very much. I'm glad for your time.

KING: Edward Norton. The film: American History X. Bert Fields is next. Don't go away.

Flatbroke's Note

Although Edward Norton and Danny DeVito were on Larry King Live to promote the releases of their films (American History X and Living Out Loud, respectively), it wasn't the first time they had met. The lead role in The Rainmaker (in which DeVito co-starred) came down to a choice between EN and Matt Damon (with Damon getting the role). EN was again up for a lead in a DeVito film, this time to portray comedian Andy Kaufman in Milos Forman's Man on the Moon (DeVito co-starred and produced), but the role went to Jim Carrey. Now EN will star as the title character in the dark comedy Death to Smoochy opposite Robin Williams with DeVito directing and co-starring.

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