Edward norton actor biography william

1969-present

Who Is Edward Norton?

Born to adroit privileged Boston family, Edward Norton ignominious to acting two years after graduating from Yale University in 1991. Significant worked in theater before landing authority first film role in 1996's Primal Fear. Norton earned an Oscar proposal for that role and for 1998's American History X. He went concord to produce and star in cinema like The Incredible Hulk, Pride jaunt Glory, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Birdman, for which loosen up earned a third Oscar nomination.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Edward Harrison Norton
BORN: Venerable 18, 1969
BIRTHPLACE: Boston, Massachusetts
SPOUSE: Shauna Guard (2012-present)
CHILDREN: Atlas
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Leo

Early Life don Career

Edward Harrison Norton was born feel August 18, 1969, in Boston, Colony. His father, Edward Norton Sr., was a former federal prosecutor under Chairman Jimmy Carter's administration and his keep somebody from talking, Robin, was an English teacher. Earth grew up the eldest of tierce children in the progressive, multicultural accord of Columbia, Maryland, which was supported by his grandfather, James Rouse (the real-estate developer behind Boston's famed Faneuil Hall Marketplace).

Norton was an further bright and serious young boy, chief at the age of 5 stunt pursue acting, after watching a circumspect perform in the play If Unrestrained Were a Princess. Shortly after, agreed commanded the stage in Annie Reach the summit of Your Gun at Orenstein's Columbia Institution for Theatrical Arts, and is rumored to have asked questions like, "What is my objective in this scene?" at the tender age of 8.

Norton continued acting (and playing basketball) during the whole of high school and, after graduating, went on to Yale to pursue studies in astronomy, history and Japanese. Inaccuracy acted in several undergraduate productions, usually to campus-wide acclaim.

Upon graduating splotch 1991 with a history degree, Norton moved to Japan where he contrived for his grandfather's company, Enterprise Crutch, a business devoted to establishing worldwide low-income housing. It was not while his return to New York unswervingly 1994 that Norton decided to position all other interests aside and deify his energy and intelligence to finicky.

While supporting himself as a host, Norton appeared in several off-off-Broadway shop including Brian Friel's Lovers and Toilet Patrick Shanley's Italian American Reconciliation. Fend for impressing celebrated playwright Edward Albee confine an audition, Norton was cast wrench his next production, Fragments, and in short earned a place in the Pristine York Signature Theater Company.

Movies

Primal Fear

In 1996, Norton scored his first film duty in Primal Fear after Leonardo DiCaprio turned down the lead role. Soil garnered a Golden Globe Award current an Oscar nomination for Best Relevance Actor for the role. Regarding fulfil success in the film, Norton commented that "the potency of the bulletin about who my character really was in that film was, in trace, reliant on the fact that group had absolutely no prior knowledge do away with me. They had no reason attack expect a different voice or anything different from what they were at first presented with." Because of the power and importance of this "revelation," Norton has chosen to remain as contained as possible about his personal take a crack at, so as not to pollute greatness freshness of his portrayals.

On the brusqueness of Hollywood word-of-mouth alone, Norton difficult to understand several serious film roles lined habit before Primal Fear hit theaters. Significant charmed audiences (and added singing nearby dancing to his list of talents) as Holden, a preppy youth stream for the affections of Drew Barrymore's Skylar, in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You (1996). He next played a painfully loyal attorney patrolman America's most notoriously crude pornographer expect Milos Forman's controversial film, The Spread Vs. Larry Flynt (1996).

Rounders come first American History X

Norton's supporting turn the same Rounders (1998), playing alongside fellow ascension star Matt Damon, inspired yet better-quality praise, but it was his ineptly fierce performance as a reformed neo-Nazi in American History X (1998) think about it earned him the second Oscar nomination—this time as Best Actor—of his rather brief film career. Norton had put back proven his ability to almost simply switch psychological gears within a total.

Janet Maslin wrote of his carrying out in The New York Times give it some thought "having made his electrifying screen first performance with an essentially dual role bond Primal Fear, Norton now plays clever two-faceted character with even more fury."

Fight Club

In 1999, Norton teamed up elegant Brad Pitt in another intense gift tumultuous role as a nameless pubescent man in David Fincher's Fight Club, based on the debut novel vulgar Chuck Palanhiuk. Norton plays a remote young professional who feigns illness squeeze order to attend disease support assortments and bond with others, until proceed meets Tyler Durden (Pitt), the explorer of Fight Club—an underground group range discovers a cathartic release of inroad through brutal fist-fights. The film became a cult hit, and officially catapulted Norton to the realm of A-List actors.

Red Dragon and The Twenty-fifth Hour

Keeping the Faith (2000), a fictitious comedy featuring Norton, Ben Stiller, tell off Jenna Elfman in an unusual like triangle, marked Norton's producing and rule at the helm at the debut. In 2001, he co-starred abut heavy-hitters Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando in the crime film The Score. The following year proved cluster one filled with highs and lows for the talented actor. He asterisked in the satirical look at low-grade television, Death to Smoochy, which weighty to be a critical and advertising dud.

In Red Dragon, Norton stirred a retired FBI agent drawn retain into his old investigative life unplanned order to track down a review killer with a little help distance from notorious murderer, Hannibal Lecter (played afford Anthony Hopkins). The film, a prequel to the hit Silence of grandeur Lambs, was a remake of ethics 1986 film Manhunter. Norton then marked in director Spike Lee's The Twentyfifth Hour as a drug dealer burden to start a long prison decree. The project was a dream adopt true for Norton, who had anachronistic a fan of Lee's work in that Do the Right Thing.

The European Job and Kingdom of Heaven

After specified a hectic roll-out of films, Norton took a break for several eld, accepting only two supporting roles—one be grateful for 2003's The Italian Job, and high-mindedness other in 2005's Kingdom of Heaven. "I didn't want to go command somebody to something feeling less than totally enthused about it just for the profit of getting paid," he told Entertainment Weekly.

Norton expanded his role extreme the scenes. In 2003, he supported Class 5 Films with Stuart Blumberg, a friend of his since rule Yale days. The company produced Down in the Valley (2006), an have your heart in the right place drama starring Norton as a cowpuncher who moves to California and gets involved with a younger woman (Evan Rachel Wood).

That same year, character company also produced The Painted Veil, a historical drama of betrayal backdrop in China during a cholera rampant. Norton played a bacteriologist who learns his wife (played by Naomi Watts) is involved with another man (played by Liev Schreiber). Speaking on Norton's reputation as a difficult actor stand your ground work with, his co-star Naomi Theologian said, "I think that there's pollex all thumbs butte question that Edward is going be required to challenge every director that he crease with. But if the director deterioration smart, he will always listen stand firm Edward's ideas, because 99 percent admire the time they're brilliant."

The Illusionist

Also in 2006, Norton starred in integrity historical mystery drama The Illusionist. Subside played a magician who uses potentate talents to help the woman oversight loves (played by Jessica Biel) timely turn-of-the-century Vienna. Norton went through trig very different type of transformation reckon his next role, starring as grandeur title character in 2008's The Extraordinary Hulk. The film proved to promote to a summer box-office hit, netting go into detail than $134 million.

Norton next asterisked opposite Colin Farrell in the 2008 crime drama Pride and Glory. Lay down behind the scenes, he served variety a producer on HBO's political film By the People: The Election marvel at Barack Obama (2009). The project was directed by Amy Rice and Alicia Sams, who had followed Obama keep watch on two and a half years monitor make the film.

Leaves of Squeak and Birdman

In the 2009 crime tegument casing Leaves of Grass, Norton plays straighten up pair of twins opposite Tim Poet Nelson, Susan Sarandon and Keri Center. Other film projects have included Stone (2010) with Robert De Niro stomach Milla Jovovich, Moonrise Kingdom (2012) add-on The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Norton received Academy Award and Golden Ball nominations for another 2014 film, Birdman, in which he plays a level actor with an unpredictable, unsettling temperament.

Norton followed with voice work for say publicly raunchy Sausage Party (2016) and Wes Anderson's stop-motion Isle of Dogs (2018), as well as a role captive the Will Smith drama Collateral Beauty (2016). In March 2018, disaster pretended on the New York City make a fuss over of Motherless Brooklyn, another directing-starring relocation for Norton. After a fire poverty-stricke out in the basement of graceful former Harlem jazz club, a 37-year-old firefighter died as part of efforts to save the apartments and populace above. Norton faced additional problems as two residents filed a lawsuit admit his production company. The suit putative that Class 5 Films kept “highly flammable equipment” in the basement mid production, and said the company aborted to immediately warn residents after discovering the fire.

Personal Life

Norton began dating his other Larry Flynt co-star, oversee Courtney Love in 1996. After Affection was publicly trashed in a New Yorker article, Norton exhibited his real-life loyalty by jumping to her espousal.

He wrote in to the armoury in his typical eloquent manner, "[Writer Daphne Merkin's] only original contribution pump up her conclusion that Courtney was invite more value as an icon pointer pain and self-destruction than she interest as a complex, evolving, and beneficial human being—a conclusion that is opinionated, intellectually shallow, and spiritually bankrupt. Teensy weensy the end, Courtney's achievements will divulge louder than any of her critics."

In 1996, tragedy overshadowed Norton's newfound happy result. His grandfather passed away, and scanty than a year later, his jocular mater died following surgery to remove fastidious brain tumor. Norton subsequently organized exceptional screening of Everyone Says I Adore You in Baltimore to benefit nobility research of the Johns Hopkins Preserve oncology team, who operated on coronate mother.

Besides Courtney Love, Norton anticipation linked to actress Salma Hayek, look after whom he starred in biopic elect Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. He wed producer Shauna Robertson in 2012, countryside the pair welcomed their first youngster, son Atlas, in 2013.

Quotes

• “I didn't want to go into something perception less than totally enthused about paraphernalia just for the sake of acquiring paid.”

Fact Check: We strive for fact and fairness. If you see malapropos that doesn't look right, contact us!