Word: norton
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That's more than sage advice; it's an order from a superior officer. So at 30--the age Beatty was when he produced and starred in Bonnie and Clyde--Norton has directed and starred in Keeping the Faith, a genially wistful romantic comedy about two guys and the girl they've always loved. If this old-fangled triangle about a priest (Norton), a rabbi (Ben Stiller) and a dynamic executive (Jenna Elfman) proves as popular as early previews suggest, it will give further credence to the belief that Norton is blessed. After just seven films, this Yale grad...
...does Milos Forman, who directed Norton in The People vs. Larry Flynt and plays an older priest in Keeping the Faith. He is impressed by Norton's "balance between intelligence and instincts. He's very bright and analytical, but that doesn't close the door to his instincts. I'm sure he analyzed the directors he worked with as thoroughly as he analyzes his parts as an actor. So now, when he says 'Action,' everything is there as planned--plus a few privileged moments, which come from his talent...
...mother an English teacher. Edward (don't call him Ed; there's nothing of the Honeymooners sewer rat about him) grew up in Columbia, Md., a town created by his grandfather, the social planner James Rouse. "My grandfather was a big fan of remaining fluid in your young life," Norton says, "of exploration and searching and seeking. He once offered to give me some money to keep me out of going into an investment-banking job." So the history major plunged into the New York City acting community. Before long he was in plays and movies...
...Norton likes the variety that acting offers--the new skills to be mastered for each role. He has learned how to act like a priest, a poker player and, for his next film (The Score, with Robert De Niro), a safecracker. "I need diversity of experience," he says. "I'm not interested in playing the same types of things again and again." Yet one theme has emerged, again and again, in his films: the attraction of two men, one reserved, the other volatile. Man against man. My brother's keeper. Sibling rivalry that, in the melodramas, explodes into sibling riflery...
Sometimes Norton is the soft guy: a lawyer helping a porn king (Larry Flynt), a fellow whose girlfriend falls for a convict (Everyone Says I Love You), a despondent drone surrendering to the spell of a pummeling anarchist (Fight Club). Sometimes he's the bad boy: an ex-con luring a respectable pal into the gambling underworld (Rounders) or a neo-Nazi with an impressionable kid brother (American History X). And once or twice--in his heralded movie debut Primal Fear, for example--he is both mild and wild, with schizophrenic tendencies bubbling up at whim or will...