"The elusive, electrifying, erupting Edward Norton," Interview magazine trumpeted last year.
"There is a careerist value system in this town that might make you feel pressured to look for something very commercial or take a stab at a certain kind of film because it will solidify your box-office status," says Norton.
"That's totally acceptable. That's totally a valid option for anyone who wants to choose it. I just don't personally. I don't care about that stuff as much as I do feeling interested and good about the role."
Norton, born near Baltimore and bred in the New York theatre scene, is highly trained and highly principled. He seems to be telling the truth.
Example: His next film is Rounders, a gritty drama about professional poker players in the underbelly of New York (opening Friday). Norton, who co-stars with newly minted matinee idol Matt Damon he's good too. I think Damon is a serious actor, has the smaller role as the psycho sidekick, a character appropriately nicknamed Worm. Even the Damon connection, which is a box-office booster after Good Will Hunting hit the jackpot, was fortuitous, not planned. Rounders was cast and in production before the Good Will Hunting phenomenon occurred.
So here is Norton, an Oscar nominee himself for best supporting actor for playing the stuttering hick who was not what he seemed in Primal Fear, choosing another off-beat support role. Precisely when those 'voices' were telling him to seize the day and catapult himself to movie stardom.
"I don't really want to work for the sake of working. I can't do to myself what other people seem to be able to do or want to do. I can't do one (movie) and then do another one with no time in between to either recharge my batteries or just to do the work that I think you need to do to make these things what they ought to be."
Norton wants his interrogators to know he does not take this position "just in some sort of principled sense." It is a question of fun.
"It's what I enjoy about it," he says of the downtime between films, time he uses to research and delve so deeply into his next movie character that even a lying, cheating, conniving degenerate like Worm seems real. Norton, like Damon, also spent time playing poker, to learn the game and get a sense of the atmosphere of the real deal.
"I need and enjoy the months of time to really learn it and to get it right," he says. "And that's the part of the experience that I enjoy the most.
After the release of Rounders, Norton will headline another film he has already finished shooting, the controversial skinhead drama from British performance artist Tony Kaye, American History X, slated for release on Oct. 30. Norton is also currently shooting Fight Club, a drama in which he co-stars with Brad Pitt. In 1999, he will produce and star in a film called Keeping The Faith.
It is a matter of controlling your fate. "I've been fortunate to have opportunities to work with really great people on things I cared about," Norton says of his resume to date. "But also I've made those choices for myself."
At the same time, while his movies have succeeded, Norton does not want to be too precious. "I don't want to sound snobby in the sense of going, 'I like to make good films!' You never know if anything you make is going to be good. It's a total role of the dice. You can only follow your best instincts and know your own reasons for doing it. I want to know I'm doing it for my own reasons and not for other people's reasons.
This fierce independence may account for Norton's appreciation for Courtney Love. Neither of them has ever publicly acknowledged that they are in a relationship, although they attended the 1997 Oscars together in support of The People Vs. Larry Flynt.
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