Edward Norton

Interview, April, 1996 by Drew Barrymore

In the courtroom thriller Primal Fear, which opens this month, some actors we already know about remind us why we know about them. Richard Gere is at his best as a publicity-hound lawyer: Has he ever been more slippery? Laura Linney, as the prosecutor he has romantically spurned, is wonderfully edgy and sardonic. Frances McDormand, Alfre Woodard, and John Mahoney are each superb in key supporting roles, as they usually are. But who's this kid playing the stuttering hick?

His name is Edward Norton, and it only takes a few seconds of screen time to realize that he might be capable of anything - any neurosis, any tenderness, any monstrosity. The twenty-six-year-old Norton considers New York's Signature Theatre Company, which he joined after Edward Albee recommended him, as his home base. For the moment, though, he is in demand for movies. After completing Primal Fear, he went straight into Woody Allen's fall '96 project, a musical in which he was cast as a young lawyer, Holden, engaged to Drew Barrymore's Skylar. He plays another lawyer, the one defending notorious Hustler publisher Larry Flynt (Woody Harrelson) against obscenity charges, in Milos Forman's late-fall release, The People vs. Larry Flynt. Says Courtney Love, who plays Flynt's late wife, Althea Leasure Flynt, in the film: "Edward is so brilliant, so chivalrous. In terms of ethics and integrity, he transcends virtually everybody I've met in the entertainment world. Both as an actor and a person, he's pure class."

Norton is sparing in his dealings with the press, but we knew that if anyone could get him to talk, it would be his recent co-star, Ms. Barrymore. We put them together on the phone shortly after he had arrived in Memphis to begin work on Larry Flynt.

DREW BARRYMORE: I'm going to start at the very beginning, if that's O.K.

EDWARD NORTON: All I should say is, this is my first time.

DB: I know. I'm very excited I get to break your interview cherry.

EN: So go easy on me.

DS: I will, I will. Now, tell me where you're from.

EN: I'm from Columbia, Maryland. But, I would rather not go too much into that side of things for personal and professional reasons.

DB: You're a tough nut to crack, Norton. When did you start acting?

EN: I started studying acting when I was about six. I had a babysitter who subsequently went on to play Cosette in Les Miserables on Broadway. At the time, she was in a musical version of Cinderella, called If I Were a Princess, at the local drama school. There were a lot of little kids my age playing Cinderella's mice, and I really wanted to be a mouse. [DB laughs] I had a notion that if my babysitter got me down to the school quick enough, I could actually get to be a mouse before the production closed. She did take me down the day after I saw the play and I signed up for classes. I didn't play a mouse, but I acted all through my childhood and continued to do theater in college and in New York when I moved there.

DB: Now, Edward, you're getting amazing critical acclaim for your performance in your first feature film, Primal Fear. I've read - I swear - ten different things about how good you are in it. They're like, "The reason to see this movie, other than Richard Gere and his phenomenal always-ness, is Edward Norton."

EN: [laughs] That's another one for the Barrymore dictionary: "Always-ness."

DB: Just for the record, Edward thinks I should have my own dictionary because I make up so many words.

"Cansistency" - how 'bout that? It's sort of along the same lines.

EN: When a nuclear holocaust destroys the world and a new language rises from the rubble, I'm going to start plugging in words from the Drew Barrymore lexicon.

DB: I'm So honored. Anyway, because I know you so well, I know you're downplaying the praise you're getting and not going publicity crazy. You're growing into it, whereas a lot of actors get very hungry for it. You concentrate on your work and seeking out diverse characters, but only those that mean something to you. It's partly why I have so much respect for you as an actor. You're not a shmuck, but if you ever become one then I'm gonna kick your ass. In fact, we've already discussed this.

EN: I don't think I could have articulated it as well as you just did, so I'll take it as a compliment.

DB: [laughs] Was Primal Fear your first experience acting for film?

EN: I'd had some limited experience acting in student films and I'd done an independent short. I wasn't that unfamiliar with film, but it was a whole different ball game working on these big, intimidating Paramount soundstages when we made Primal Fear. I had a great role, though, that was oddly in line with the plays I'd been doing, in terms of the types of challenges it entailed. It was also a high-profile job, and there was a certain spotlight on me to see what I was going to do with the part. A role as good as that of Aaron Stampler is rarely made available to an unknown actor. Normally, you can't even read for a part like that unless you've been on the inside loop since you were very young.