Sang Park's Presentation on Edward Norton

I've been lucky enough to have Sang in my class for the last four weeks. He's one of the friendliest students I've known at LRS and he's added a lot to the class with his curiosity, cheerful outlook and love of movies. (He's watched Good Will Hunting over eleven times.) Here's his presentation...

-Kevin

Hello, today, I’d like to tell you about Edward Norton, who has been one of my favorite actor's since I was 18. I’m not going to list his entire filmography, but will talk about his well-known movies and some interesting things about him.

Are you a fan of Drama, Comedy Drama, Romance, Crime movies? Are you sick of ordinary Hollywood pretty boys?
Then, you should pay attention to his performances.


Edward Norton was born on August 18, 1969 in Columbia Maryland, USA, the son of a former prosecutor and an English teacher. He received a B.A. in history from Yale in 1991, but took many theater and Japanese courses as an undergraduate.
Following graduation, he worked in Osaka, Japan, consulting for his grandfather's company, Enterprise Foundation, which works to create decent, affordable housing for low-income families.

He is an actor of unusual talent, Edward attained almost instant stardom with his film debut in 1996's Primal Fear.

In Primal Fear, The role was offered to Leonardo DiCaprio but he turned it down. The movie company was looking for a young actor to star opposite Richard Gere, but Co-star 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.


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 this film, Primal Fear.

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 would earn him his second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actor.

For this movie, Norton shaved his head and gained 30 pounds of muscle in 3 months by drinking protein shakes, meat shakes, and lifting weights non-stop for his role as Dereck Vinyard.

With great performances in more than two movies, Norton already had two Oscar nominations before he was 30.

Do you think his movies seem too serious?

Here is his romantic comedy movie Keeping the Faith which was his directorial debut in 2000. Actor Edward Norton debuts as a director with this comedy-drama about love, friendship, and faith. If you are a fan of Ben Stiller comedies, see his early works. You'll really enjoy it.

Some interesting things that I found about him are as follows:
He turned down the role of Private Ryan in Saving Private Ryan which is the character Mat Damon plays in 1998.
Producers of American Psycho wanted him to play Patrick Bateman that the character Christine Bale plays in 2000.

Well, even if you weren’t interested in Edward Norton, I hope this presentation could make you appreciate him.

He treasures his private life and being able to live a normal life – and he said he can't imagine not being able to take the New York subway because of being too famous.

I’m not sure why I’ve been a big fan of his, but those kind of unusual things make me excited and look forward to his next movie.

Thanks for your attention.

-Sang Park