Edward Norton
☼ Born on 18 December 1969, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Biography
American actor, filmmaker and activist Edward Harrison Norton was born on August 18, 1969, in Boston, Massachusetts, and was raised in Columbia, Maryland.
His mother, Lydia Robinson "Robin" (Rouse), was a foundation executive and teacher of English, and a daughter of famed real estate developer James Rouse, who developed Columbia, MD; she passed away of brain cancer on March 6, 1997. His father, Edward Mower Norton, was an environmental lawyer and conservationist, who works for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Edward has two younger siblings, James and Molly.
From the age of five onward, the Yale graduate (majoring in history) was interested in acting. At the age of eight, he would ask his drama teacher what his motivation in a scene was. He attended theater schools throughout his life, and eventually managed to find work on stage in New York as a member of the Signature players, who produced the works of playwright and director Edward Albee. Around the time when he was appearing in Albee's Fragments, in Hollywood, they were looking for a young actor to star opposite Richard Gere in a new courtroom thriller, Primal Fear (1996). The role was offered to Leonardo DiCaprio but he turned it down. Gere was on the verge of walking away from the project, fed up with the wait for a young star to be found, when Edward auditioned and won the role over 2000 other hopefuls. Before the film was even released, his test screenings for the part were causing a Hollywood sensation, and
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he was soon offered roles in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You (1996) and The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996). Edward won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Primal Fear (1996). In 1998, Norton gained 30 pounds of muscle and transformed his look into that of a monstrous skinhead for his role as a violent white supremacist in American History X (1998). This performance earned him his second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actor.
He received his third Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor, for his work in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014). His most prominent roles also include the critically acclaimed Everyone Says I Love You (1996), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), Fight Club (1999), Red Dragon (2002), 25th Hour (2002), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The Illusionist (2006), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). He has also directed and co-written films, including his directorial debut, Keeping the Faith (2000). He has done uncredited work on the scripts for The Score (2001), Frida (2002), and The Incredible Hulk (2008).
Alongside his work in cinema, Norton is an environmental and social activist, and is a member of the board of trustees of Enterprise Community Partners, a non-profit organization for developing affordable housing founded by his grandfather James Rouse.
In the role of actor
A Complete Unknown (10/12/2024)
The early years of the career of Bob Dylan are recreated in A Complete Unknown. In 1961, enigmatic folk singer Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) travels to New York to visit his hero Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), who’s hospitalized with a degenerative illness. It is at the hospital where Bob meets Peter Seeger (Edward Norton), who […]
Asteroid City (22/06/2023)
Sean Kelly on Movies Podcast Asteroid City Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / 00:05:11 Subscribe Share Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:05:11 | Recorded on June 22, 2023Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | […]
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – TIFF 2022 (21/09/2022)
Benoit Blanc is back for a new case in Greece in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) breaks out of his COVD-19 pandemic boredom when he receives an invitation to join governor Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), tech executive Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.), fashion designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) and her […]
Glass (17/01/2019)
M. Night Shyamalan returns to the world of Unbreakable two decades later in Glass. For the past 19 years, David Dunn (Bruce Willis) has been working as a vigilante superhero the media has nicknamed “The Overseer.” With the help of his son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark), David has been tracking down Kevin Wendell Crumb (James […]
Isle of Dogs (25/03/2018)
Wes Anderson returns with the stop motion Japanese adventure Isle of Dogs. 20 years in the future, all the dogs of Japan are afflicted by a virus and Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura) of Megasaki City decrees that all dogs be deported to nearby trash island. One day, the five alpha dogs of Chief (Bryan Cranston), Rex […]
The Grand Budapest Hotel (17/03/2014)
Director Wes Anderson returns with this star studded film about a famous European hotel. An author (Tom Wilkinson) recites a story about the time his younger self (Jude Law) visited the, formerly exquisite, Grand Budapest Hotel, in the Republic of Zubrowka, and spoke with its current owner Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham) about his history […]
The Bourne Legacy (12/08/2012)
While most would automatically assume The Bourne Legacy is a reboot of the Bourne franchise, it is more a side-story that takes place during and after the events of The Bourne Ultimatum. It turns out that Jason Bourne and the Treadstone and Blackbriar programs that created him were just a small peace of a larger network of […]
Moonrise Kingdom (06/06/2012)
For better or worse, Moonrise Kingdom is probably the best film Wes Anderson has made. He’s turned himself into quite an auteur over the years creating films that have a very distinct visual style. Moonrise Kingdom looks and feels like it was made in the 1960s setting of the film. The film is a coming of age […]
The Job (06/05/2012)
For my final film of Hot Docs, I saw this French documentary that filmed the recruitment process for an insurance company. Ten job seekers come in for the job, not even being told what it is, and they go through a recruitment process that I can best describe as both shocking and enthralling. To call […]
Unknown (19/02/2011)
I have been hearing a lot of comparisons between this film and Liam Neeson‘s surprise 2008 hit Taken. However, while they are both films that feature Neeson in a genre he is not usually known for, they are two different types of film. While the term is probably overused, the best description of Unknown would be […]
The Incredible Hulk (15/06/2008)
It’s a bit of a risk rebooting a franchise in only it’s second film, but since they retained a few of the plot elements from Ang Lee’s 2003 original, it wasn’t that noticeable. One thing about this film that it was hard for me not to talk about was recognizing the Toronto locals the film […]