Joe Rogan Experience #1375 - Edward Norton

Joe Rogan 0:00 We go. I always know the conversation's gonna get off to a good start when I meet a fellow Lenny Bruce fan, so. (laughs)

Edward Norton 0:07 Yes. Yeah, that was, uh, uh, and I, I, you know there's that line in Fight Club, "The things you own end up owning you."

Joe Rogan 0:15 Yeah.

Edward Norton 0:16 And I, I generally am not a stuff guy, but when I came in here, I, I did find myself going, "This is the right kind of place to keep stuff."

Joe Rogan 0:24 Yeah.

Edward Norton 0:24 And I was, I'd been wandering around lookin' at things and that was, uh, my favorite thing that I saw you have that, a couple of the, of great Lenny Bruce posters.

Joe Rogan 0:33 Yeah.

Edward Norton 0:33 One of which I've never seen.

Joe Rogan 0:34 Which one? Oh, the Without Tears.

Edward Norton 0:35 The, the, the one with his, where he-

Joe Rogan 0:37 Yeah.

Edward Norton 0:37 ... it's really wild, he looks like an Indian guru or something-

Joe Rogan 0:39 Yes.

Edward Norton 0:39 ... staring into the middle distance. That's, that's an amazing p- photograph of him.

Joe Rogan 0:43 Yeah, I kinda bought as much vintage Lenny Bruce stuff as I could find and I, uh, this place has sort of evolved into a semi-gallery, you know? It's, it's, uh, I would like to have a house with nothing in it and then have this-

Edward Norton 0:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:57 ... place just filled with shit.

Edward Norton 0:59 No, I, I kind of agree with that. Also, I think that it's fun, when you have people come through a space so that you're actually, like, sharing the things, like th- it's sort of like you're lettin' them, someone come in and wander.

Joe Rogan 1:09 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 1:10 And, uh, uh, some of the best museums in the world are people's individual curation. Some of the best art collections ever made are better than any museum 'cause they're put together by someone and you're finding, like, the threads and things, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:21 Yes.

Edward Norton 1:22 So I, I, I think when you can, when you can assemble, like, things that have meant something to you, but you can put 'em in a space where other people can bump into 'em, it's better than just, like, than letting them just collect dust in your own home where they, you stop looking at them, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:36 You have a very unusual perspective for someone who makes their living as an actor.

Edward Norton 1:41 What do you mean? How, why do you think so?

Joe Rogan 1:42 You're a very thoughtful person.

Edward Norton 1:44 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:44 Very thoughtful.

Edward Norton 1:45 I know a lot, I know a-

Joe Rogan 1:46 (laughs)

Edward Norton 1:46 ... lot of thoughtful actors.

Joe Rogan 1:47 I do too, I do too.

Edward Norton 1:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:49 But it's not common. You gotta find them, you gotta curate those folks.

Edward Norton 1:54 Yeah. I, um... It's a funny, it's a funny, it's a funny gig by, like, by definition. It's like, if you think about all the, like, the, the yin yang in it, the paradoxes in it, it's like on the one hand, with guys as actors there'll be a lot of, um, you know, there's a certain kind of, uh, not g- not macho, but there's, like, you know, men'll look to play intense roles and-

Joe Rogan 2:21 Right.

Edward Norton 2:21 ... these things. But what you're doing is, like, it's, it's you're playing dress up.

Joe Rogan 2:26 (laughs)

Edward Norton 2:26 Like, y- you know, you're, you're, you're like... And I, I always liked, uh, I always liked the... Dorothy Parker, the famous New York, you know, writer said, "Scratch an actor, you'll find an actress."

Joe Rogan 2:36 (laughs)

Edward Norton 2:37 (laughs) And I think it's the greatest line. It's not, and it's not how it sounds, just to be a little, you know, like n- because he is, it's, that's not an, uh, s- a knock on actresses-

Joe Rogan 2:47 No, no, no.

Edward Norton 2:47 ... or a femi... But that's, uh, the real truth of the whole thing-

Joe Rogan 2:51 Sure.

Edward Norton 2:51 ... is, like, we put on makeup, we put on clothes, we play dress up, and we pretend to be other people. And it's like, it, it really is like, you know, um, when people are, like... You know, sometimes y- my brother and sister will lau- 'cause I've done these certain things that have a certain kind of iconic intensity or whatever, right? Like you-

Joe Rogan 3:12 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 3:12 And they look at me and they're like, "Are you kidding? Like, have you ever seen the size of his ankles?" He, they're like, my brother's like, "He's such a twerp." Like, "He's such a..."

Joe Rogan 3:19 (laughs)

Edward Norton 3:19 He's, my brother's, like, two inches bigger than me and 30 pounds bigger and way stronger, you know my little brother. And he's, uh, and it's always like, "He is the, he's a theater nerd. He's not, like, tough."

Joe Rogan 3:30 (laughs)

Edward Norton 3:30 They're like, "Don't buy the hype."

Joe Rogan 3:31 When you played the Hulk. (laughs)

Edward Norton 3:32 Yeah, no. But um-

Joe Rogan 3:35 Or American, uh-

Edward Norton 3:36 ... History X, yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:36 ... American History X? Yeah.

Edward Norton 3:37 I do, but I do, I, I do think there's, um... There's sometimes there's a, it's really funny the way there's a posture in it sometimes. There's like a pos- there's like a public-facing posture that some people who are in this trade, this weird thing, will adopt. And it's like, (laughs) it's like, hey man-

Joe Rogan 3:56 (laughs)

Edward Norton 3:57 ... I hate to tell you, but like, like you don't have to live into some... You don't have to live into... Y- uh, I sometimes feel like people are compensating for the fact that what they do in fact is play dress up.

Joe Rogan 4:09 Right. Do you, do you think it's also that they have to kind of, uh, project this image to ensure that they get more of these tough guy roles or...

Edward Norton 4:18 Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. I, I think, um... Or, or maybe it's like th- that's who they wanted to be, maybe in a weird way they're living into... Um, some, some people I think, they m- they relish the opportunity to change the story of who they are.

Joe Rogan 4:37 Mm.

Edward Norton 4:38 You know what I mean? They're-

Joe Rogan 4:40 Yeah.

Edward Norton 4:40 ... they're, they're, uh, they're getting to, through, through getting well known, they're getting this chance to sort of, like, wipe the slate-

Joe Rogan 4:46 Yes.

Edward Norton 4:46 ... of whatever it is they were getting away from, and they're getting to, you know, the, the chance to sort of create a, create a persona that they're m- they're happier with than, than what, than before, you know?

Joe Rogan 4:58 Right, like what they wish they always were.

Edward Norton 5:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:00 In their darkest times.

Edward Norton 5:02 Yeah, or, or, um, you know... Yeah, there's, there's, uh... I also think there's a funny thing which is there's this history of famous actors, right? So and it, and it, I r- do think it, it sort of begins with Brando 'cause Brando had such an enormous effect on the psychology of men in, in America. He really, he really, like... And if you look at what I would call, like, the great generation of American actors, the, the... Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Gene Hackman, um, Al Pacino, Morgan Freeman, Meryl Streep. Like just, you know, the whole po- that's all, like, the post-Brando generation.

Joe Rogan 5:42 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 5:42 All of those people, literally all of them wanted to become actors because of Marlon Brando.

Joe Rogan 5:47 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 5:47 And, and he, he so rewrote the idea of w- what it was, what it could be, that you h- got a whole... It was like what Bob Dylan did in, in the culture. It was like it rewrote, like-... it just rewrote the game, almost.

Joe Rogan 6:04 Or like what Lenny did with comedy.

Edward Norton 6:06 Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Rogan 6:07 Yeah.

Edward Norton 6:07 Lenny Bruce in... Uh, there... And I... And there are these people who come and they have, they have like a, kind of a s- a permanent... They, they're a permanent before and after-

Joe Rogan 6:17 Yes.

Edward Norton 6:18 ... in, in a certain kind of field. You know what I mean? And-

Joe Rogan 6:21 Hendrix with the guitar.

Edward Norton 6:22 Hen- Yeah, yeah. Yes, I would say so. I would say so, in rock guitar, yeah. Uh, although it is interesting when you go back and look at rock in that era. There's that famous story of, I think, of... I don't remember if it's like Pete Townshend making Eric Clapton come with him to hear Hendrix-

Joe Rogan 6:39 Yes.

Edward Norton 6:39 ... and Clapton crying.

Joe Rogan 6:40 Yes.

Edward Norton 6:40 You know about it?

Joe Rogan 6:41 Yeah, I heard that story.

Edward Norton 6:42 But you ca- but you also can't discount what Cla- Clapton in i-... You know, there's those famous photos of the wall, Clapton is God, like, like, I... There's... It's, it's hard to like... You, you can't really underrate what Clapton did to guitar, and guitar... you know, in that era too.

Joe Rogan 7:01 Right. No, he was phenomenal-

Edward Norton 7:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:02 ... but it was a different thing.

Edward Norton 7:03 It was a different thing. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:04 Yeah.

Edward Norton 7:04 Jimi Hendrix was, was a protean-

Joe Rogan 7:07 He, he seemed-

Edward Norton 7:07 ... friend of the town.

Joe Rogan 7:08 ... like he broke through to a new dimension.

Edward Norton 7:11 Yeah. I ag- yeah, I agree.

Joe Rogan 7:12 Like he popped through the membrane of existence into this new sound.

Edward Norton 7:15 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 7:15 And there's guys that are... Like, there, there's people that have a distinct s-... Like, do you... Are you a Gary Clark Jr. Fan?

Edward Norton 7:22 No, I can't. I-

Joe Rogan 7:23 Gary Clark Jr. is a phenomenal blues guitarist.

Edward Norton 7:27 Okay. He-

Joe Rogan 7:27 And he has a sound that's almost i- instantaneously recognizable as Gary Clark Jr. You hear him and you go, "Oh my God, there it is." Like, everyone who works with him is just like, they just walk away sweating, just going, "Jesus Christ."

Edward Norton 7:41 Wow.

Joe Rogan 7:41 It's phenomenal.

Edward Norton 7:42 I feel that way about Willie Nelson. I think Willie Nelson is legitimately in, in country music, like there's before and after Willie Nelson, like... And, and you can say that he... You know, that Hank Williams Jr. or whatever, that he... But Willie, Willie Nelson, to me, is the h- hinge around which it goes from being something that had, you know, the... Uh, it had a Nashville kind of Grand Ole Opry kind of polish to it, and he basically took it... He reclaimed it i- in, as this like American roots-

Joe Rogan 8:12 Mm.

Edward Norton 8:13 ... thing, a- and put jazz in it. That's what's so crazy, is peop- b- anyone who plays music knows like Willie Nelson is essentially a jazz guitar player. Like, and, and he's... He... You know, Red-Headed Stranger is th-... To me, that's a before and after kind of a thing too, like there's that out- that whole outlaw thing. And I think there's a whole lot of... It's almost like after that, there's two camps. There's still gonna be like the, you know, the, um, Steve Earle in his Copperhead Road thing is more the positive thing, but then there's like Steve Earle roots, Steve Earle. You know what I mean? It's like he almost like straddled it. But, uh, but my point about Brando was just that, like he, he, he changed the, he changed the idea of the type of person that male actors wanted to be. They want... Suddenly it was like they wanted to have like a patina or a reputa- as a visceral. They wanted to be visceral, not polished. They wanted to be muscular.

Joe Rogan 9:18 Mm.

Edward Norton 9:18 They wanted to be masculine. They wanted to be, um, y- you know, uh, intense. Like, those were not the kind of words that people... When you think back on like Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, like that, that is not what-

Joe Rogan 9:32 Right.

Edward Norton 9:32 That is not what movie stars were aspiring to. They were aspiring to polish, a kind of a polish before Brando, and after, after Brando was-

Joe Rogan 9:40 There was an authenticity, right?

Edward Norton 9:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:42 There's a, uh, there's a someth- there's something to his performances where you go, "Oh, well this is more like real life than a fil-"

Edward Norton 9:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 9:49 Like, On the Waterfront.

Edward Norton 9:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 9:50 Like, the, the I Coulda Been a Contender thing.

Edward Norton 9:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:53 Like, when he's doing that, you're like, "Well, the, oh, this is how someone would actually behave if they felt like their life had been a disaster and it could have been avoided."

Edward Norton 10:03 Well, you just hit on something though that I... And drives me nuts, 'cause when people sort of talk about Brando they're like, you know, they're sort of the like, the Stanley Kowalski, um, the, the brutal masculinity, et cetera. The thing about Brando is he is beautiful. He's an, he's kind of this enormous Roman-looking guy. But it's, it... Where he kills, where he really kills is this kind of broken sensitivity that he had. And, uh, "I could have been a contender" is not a tough guy speech.

Joe Rogan 10:34 Right.

Edward Norton 10:34 It's the opposite.

Joe Rogan 10:35 Yeah.

Edward Norton 10:36 It's, it's a broken tough guy. It's a guy practically crying, saying like, "You were my, you were my brother, and you should have looked out for me. I needed you looking out for me, and my life is, my life's gone down the toilet-

Joe Rogan 10:48 Yeah.

Edward Norton 10:49 ... because of that, in that moment, you didn't look out for me."

Joe Rogan 10:51 But it's also-

Edward Norton 10:52 It's, it's, you know, it's, it's like tearful, it's not...

Joe Rogan 10:54 Yes.

Edward Norton 10:54 And, and even Sta- even the best moment of Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar is, is really, it's like when he falls on his knees in front of his wife and cries. You know what I mean? It's like that's what he wa-... He was way better in, in a lot of ways, to me, it's the fact that he was actually kind of in touch with his emotional life. It's not that he was-

Joe Rogan 11:17 Right.

Edward Norton 11:18 ... like so macho at all.

Joe Rogan 11:21 Right.

Edward Norton 11:21 It's that he, he looked that way, but he was, but he actually had this like poetic sensitivity.

Joe Rogan 11:27 Yes. And it was... It r- it resonated real, like it felt real.

Edward Norton 11:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:32 And the... If you watch actors before him, there was a certain, uh, the, the, an undeniable theatric element to what they were doing-

Edward Norton 11:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 11:41 ... that was like, "Oh, this guy's acting."

Edward Norton 11:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:43 Whereas he was... He seemed like a guy who was really living the scene.

Edward Norton 11:48 Yeah, yeah. And some of it, uh, it, it... Sometimes I think it sounds silly to say the instrument of a person, but he, he has this crazy... He's... He looks the way he looks, but he's got this marble-mouthed... He do-

Joe Rogan 12:01 Yeah.

Edward Norton 12:01 He's not articulate. He doesn't come off as-... like, he, he, there's a mushiness to the way he speaks and a kind of a, um... Yeah. It, it, it doesn't have a style, you know. The, the guys before that, it was, you felt their, you felt that they were working on their style.

Joe Rogan 12:20 Yeah.

Edward Norton 12:20 And, and he seemed to be sorta like scratching his ribs and, and mumbling and, and, um, you know, in a T-shirt. And he just was, he was kind of present in the moment.

Joe Rogan 12:35 And I think it was all accentuated by the way he ended his life, like the end of his life. He was enormous.

Edward Norton 12:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:40 Gigantic fat guy and he just, uh, just given into all of his vices and he was just this guy... He d- he was a beautiful man.

Edward Norton 12:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:48 He just didn't seem to give a fuck about that at all.

Edward Norton 12:52 (Laughs) Yeah. I think, he said something to me one time about how, um, how much he was enjoying his life when he was like 23. And, and he's like, "I-" You know, even when he was doing the play, Streetcar, that made him famous, he was telling me, like, he would get with his pal Diego and go up to Harlem, go to clubs and hit on girls and all these things. And he, and I said, "You weren't aware of what was going on, you know?" And he goes, "Well, there was... I was aware of a certain amount of noise rising, and then one day I woke up and I was sitting on a pile of candy."

Joe Rogan 13:24 (laughs)

Edward Norton 13:24 That's what he... And, um, and I thought, "What a really wild way to say it." And I do think, I'm not even joking, to me, it's like what you said, it was like after that, there just... It was like there was no boundaries. He was like, he get- he was getting every- everything was... He, he, he could, he wasn't gonna be able to resist. He wasn't disciplined.

Joe Rogan 13:46 Yeah.

Edward Norton 13:47 He wasn't a super disciplined person. He was a very poetic person. I th- and I don't think he was disciplined and I think that a lot of what happened... You know, he had like something like 17 children.

Joe Rogan 13:56 (laughs)

Edward Norton 13:57 Um, and, and he got... You know, he had appetites and he had these things. And I, I think that, um... I, I do think that he, y- you know, strugg- struggled to, to deal with all the things that came with being that famous.

Joe Rogan 14:17 Yeah.

Edward Norton 14:18 You know?

Joe Rogan 14:18 And being that famous when there wasn't really a lot of examples of how to do it right or wrong before you.

Edward Norton 14:24 Yeah. Uh-

Joe Rogan 14:25 It's sort of the Elvis thing, right?

Edward Norton 14:27 It, yeah, it's the Elvis thing. The, the flip is like Dylan, who I still find myself, like when you watch the new Scorsese... Have you seen that thing?

Joe Rogan 14:36 No.

Edward Norton 14:36 Rolling, Rolling Thunder? It's really worth watching that. Um, or the original Scorsese doc about him, No Direction Home. Like, here's this guy who's like in his early 20s and they're coming at him with all this like voice of your generation, all this stuff, and he's like, "That's nothing I can relate to, man." You know? And he's go- and he's going... Like, I can't help wondering if Lenny Bruce loved Dylan. He m- I don't know that, but I would think that Lenny Bruce was tuned into Dylan because Dylan's thing was like, "Don't ask me what it means, man. I wrote it. I don't, I, you know, I don't know what it means. What, what do you think it means?" He was just constantly going, "Buzz off, man. I'm not picking it apart for you."

Joe Rogan 15:17 Mm.

Edward Norton 15:17 "I'm not, I'm not gonna pick it apart for you. I'm not gonna like buy into this stuff you're putting at me." And how did he have... He, he was 20, 20, 21 years old. Like, who resists, who resists people falling all over them to call them great when they're that age?

Joe Rogan 15:32 Right.

Edward Norton 15:32 Nobody.

Joe Rogan 15:33 Right.

Edward Norton 15:33 Nobody has that kind of like-

Joe Rogan 15:37 Sensibility.

Edward Norton 15:38 ... sensibility to go, "Everything you're bringing at me is gonna be bad for me." And I-

Joe Rogan 15:42 Wow.

Edward Norton 15:42 It's, it, it is like, watch the, if you watch those interviews with him when he's that age, it's pretty astonishing because to your point, like, you're like, "Oh, thoughtful act," whatever. I look at him and I'm like, "Nobody has that discipline at that age."

Joe Rogan 15:56 Yeah, it's amazing how uniquely qualified he was for that position at that point in time in that very strange tumultuous time in history as well.

Edward Norton 16:04 And not only that, right at the moment that, that, like, Joni Bias brings him out on the stage at the Newport Folk Festival and basically goes, "This is the prince. This is, I anoint you. He's the one. He's Neo. He's the f- he is the one." And the next year, he doesn't even take one year to go, to go, "Let me just, let me just lean into your love." The next year he comes with an electric guitar and plugs it in at the Newport Folk Festival, and people start screaming in agony like going, "What are you doing?" Like, "You're Bob Dylan, you're the king of folk. You can't plug in a guitar." And people are like running to try to cut his cords with an ax in this thing.

Joe Rogan 16:45 (laughs)

Edward Norton 16:45 Like that's how much of a betrayal. And he's like... There's people yelling, "Traitor," at him and he's going, "I don't believe you." You know?

Joe Rogan 16:52 (laughs)

Edward Norton 16:52 "I think you're a liar." Like, and he, and he's turning around to Robbie Robertson and going, "Play it loud." I mean, the guy is so punk rock.

Joe Rogan 16:58 Wow.

Edward Norton 16:59 He's so totally punk rock. He, he was as punk rock as anybody ever.

Joe Rogan 17:03 I think he probably had to be just to resist what they were trying to box him into.

Edward Norton 17:08 Yeah. And by, but there's never been anybody who was more like, "Oh, you like what I'm doing? I'm gone. I'm over here."

Joe Rogan 17:14 (laughs)

Edward Norton 17:14 Like, "Enjoy. Uh, you're gonna not like it because you like what I just did. Now where I'm going, you're gonna be discombobulated and upset, and eventually you're gonna catch up. And then when you catch up, I'm gonna move on to something else." Like-

Joe Rogan 17:26 (laughs)

Edward Norton 17:26 It's, it's really (laughs) , it really is amazing, is amazing 'cause how many people do you know in any of the things we all do who get a taste of a thing and don't like lean into it for a while?

Joe Rogan 17:37 Right, right.

Edward Norton 17:38 Right? Like, who don't kind of go, "Well, this feels good." You know?

Joe Rogan 17:41 Yes.

Edward Norton 17:42 "Maybe I'll just hang out right here." And-

Joe Rogan 17:46 Well, it's always weird when you see somebody lean into something and it's not really them and they become what people want of them. You know? And-

Edward Norton 17:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:54 ... y- you, like...... a great example in comedy was Kinison. Kinison, when he made it, uh, everyone, he wanted to lay these gigantic lines of coke for him, apparently.

Edward Norton 18:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 18:05 They were like-

Edward Norton 18:06 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 18:06 ... "Oh, it's him! It's him! He's here!"

Edward Norton 18:08 Right.

Joe Rogan 18:08 Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop!

Edward Norton 18:08 Right.

Joe Rogan 18:09 They just laid some giant line of coke. And he would joke around about it, like, "I had to do it."

Edward Norton 18:12 Oh. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 18:13 And, you know, he would do, you know, a giant line-

Edward Norton 18:15 Yeah, I can't-

Joe Rogan 18:15 ... or almost have a fucking heart attack.

Edward Norton 18:17 Right, "I can't not live in-"

Joe Rogan 18:18 Right.

Edward Norton 18:18 ... "true to the thing," because then, then-

Joe Rogan 18:20 Yes.

Edward Norton 18:21 ... they'll stop trusting it-

Joe Rogan 18:22 Right.

Edward Norton 18:22 ... or it won't... Right.

Joe Rogan 18:22 But you become a caricature.

Edward Norton 18:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:24 You become this thing. Like, Dice Clay is another example. Like, Dice Clay used to be... That used to be one part of his act. His name's Andrew Sil- Andrew Silverstein.

Edward Norton 18:33 Right.

Joe Rogan 18:33 So he would do his act, and then the Dice man was a character that he would do. But people loved it so much-

Edward Norton 18:39 Right.

Joe Rogan 18:39 ... when he would do that character, that the character became his whole act, and then he became the character. Where you see him in real life, he's wearing, like, weightlifting gloves and, you know, is walking around in a Gold's Gym T-shirt. He became-

Edward Norton 18:50 Right.

Joe Rogan 18:50 ... that guy. He's hilarious still-

Edward Norton 18:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:53 ... but he's that guy now. Like, he is more-

Edward Norton 18:55 But now he's kind of out the back side of that, wouldn't you say?

Joe Rogan 18:57 In, in, in what way?

Edward Norton 18:59 Well, now he's like acting in things and he's-

Joe Rogan 19:00 He does do that tw-

Edward Norton 19:02 And, and-

Joe Rogan 19:02 ... and act well.

Edward Norton 19:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:03 But he still does the same kind of standup.

Edward Norton 19:06 Really?

Joe Rogan 19:06 Like, if you go see him, it's still hilarious, irreverent, just, uh, complete, like, not of this era. (laughs)

Edward Norton 19:15 Well, let me ask you a question 'cause I, um, I think it's interesting. I think, uh, in that vein, like if you look at Howard Stern, who I, I've met only a couple times, but I had... I found him to be like a extremely, extremely thoughtful guy.

Joe Rogan 19:31 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 19:31 Like, and, and I, I don't mean that in a... He just was very-

Joe Rogan 19:34 He was very intelligent.

Edward Norton 19:35 ... he was really smart.

Joe Rogan 19:36 Yes.

Edward Norton 19:36 I mean, that's... Again, but he's also like, um... I don't know. The, the conversation... We have mutual friends, and I, and I, um, and I really enjoyed talking to him. Like, I thought, I thought like, "Oh, there's nothing tricky about him at all. He's really, like, down in his shoes. He's interested. He actually asks quest..." I mean, there's some people you meet, and you're just like-

Joe Rogan 19:54 Right.

Edward Norton 19:54 ... "Oh my God." That you're, they're talking in a mirror. That you, you're, you are a mirror, and they're just looking at themselves while they speak to you.

Joe Rogan 20:01 They're waiting for you to get done talking so they can talk.

Edward Norton 20:03 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:03 Yeah.

Edward Norton 20:04 But he, um... But I think... What I think's really interesting is like, so Howard, imagine, imagine the pressure, uh, 'cause I... And I grew up in the Baltimore area. He was on DC radio. He was on DC 101. Um, I remem- I remember that, the shock of-

Joe Rogan 20:21 Yes.

Edward Norton 20:22 ... him, literally. And, um, imagine, you know, the pull to deliver on what you've built, which was obviously, you know, a huge audience that wanted this thing. To me, it's really interesting and impressive that Howard's kind of... And I'm saying it like I know him. I don't know him. But watching it, to me this idea that he's kind of said, "Hey, look, I, I, you know, I'm, I'm gonna be honest about where I'm at, and, uh, in some measure I'm gonna say there's things I've done I regret. There's ways I've treated certain people in the interest of the show that I'm kinda, I'm kinda done with that. I don't really wanna be that guy." And in some measure, you know, he's kind of saying to his audience like, "You gotta deal with me where I am now."

Joe Rogan 21:10 Yes.

Edward Norton 21:10 You know what I mean? Um, now like it's not like there's like a huge risk in that 'cause his, his audience is gigantic, right? Um-

Joe Rogan 21:17 Well, it's also he's so successful-

Edward Norton 21:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:20 ... and so universally praised as being the most important figure in the history of radio.

Edward Norton 21:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:24 Like, there's no one who does, like, what I do, podcasts-

Edward Norton 21:27 Right.

Joe Rogan 21:27 ... that doesn't owe a gigantic debt of gratitude to Howard Stern. The fact that, you know, he, he was getting fined by the FCC. He d-

Edward Norton 21:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:34 I mean, they were p- w- hundreds of thousands of dollars. He kept getting fired from radio stations.

Edward Norton 21:38 Yes.

Joe Rogan 21:38 He kept doing-

Edward Norton 21:39 Kept doing it.

Joe Rogan 21:39 ... the way he did it.

Edward Norton 21:40 Right.

Joe Rogan 21:40 And it changed the way people do talk radio.

Edward Norton 21:43 Honestly, the fact that we can even... The, the fact that we've talked as long of, as, as we've talked up to now is a function of him proving that there was a tolerance for long form-

Joe Rogan 21:53 Yes.

Edward Norton 21:53 ... basically.

Joe Rogan 21:54 Yes.

Edward Norton 21:54 You know what I mean? I mean, it's like people knock on Netflix or the whatever.

Joe Rogan 21:58 Yes.

Edward Norton 21:58 I'm like, I'm like anything... There's an amazing thing going on in the world right now, which is people are, people are re-reproving or reconnecting with the fact that for all of what goes on on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and all this bullshit, like, the truth is people, people like and have the appetite for, and their brains enjoy longer form conversations.

Joe Rogan 22:25 Yes.

Edward Norton 22:26 And longer form stories more than, than it was assumed they did.

Joe Rogan 22:32 Yes.

Edward Norton 22:32 You know what I mean? And like popular culture feeds us a lot of like fast food and Xanax and like a speedball of, of you can't handle anything. You don't want anything more than, than literally like a little bit of junk food with a little bit of Xanax 'cause you just wanna lie on your couch and watch someone else save the world. That's... I know that's all you want. But that in... That is not true. And I think like, you know, you look at things like, like from Peaky Blinders to Chernobyl to like the Ken Burns Civil War series, like we're going through this thing where people are realizing like, no, that's not actually true. People actually like you, my pal Dax, you know, Shepherd, who's got a great radio show. People like to listen to people have actual conversations.

Joe Rogan 23:18 Well, they, they're also listening, and it's a, a new way of, uh, ingesting entertainment. Like, you're getting it in your car.

Edward Norton 23:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 23:25 You're getting it in your ears when you're at, at the gym-

Edward Norton 23:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:28 ... while you're on the subway or a bus-

Edward Norton 23:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:30 ... or a plane. And it's... You're getting these stimulating long form conversations that maybe s- maybe people didn't even know they wanted, you know?

Edward Norton 23:39 Yeah, I agree. I agree, but-

Joe Rogan 23:40 And everybody loves-

Edward Norton 23:40 But he-

Joe Rogan 23:40 ... a great conversation with someone. So it's like you get to have that conversation without participating.

Edward Norton 23:46 Right, right. And, and, and Stern definitely was like...... we were talking about before and after, like, I, I, there was talk radio, but that, but it kind of starts there, I think. I think you, you started to be like, "I can listen to this guy for a long time." Right?

Joe Rogan 24:00 Yeah. He broke through the membrane.

Edward Norton 24:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:01 Like you were talking about Hendrix entering into a new dimension of sounds, he, he broke through the membrane of talk radio. And what he's doing now is, well, now he's a man in his 60s who's extremely wealthy and he has some, I'm sure, some regrets as you were-

Edward Norton 24:17 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 24:17 ... talking about the things that he's done in the past and said in the past. And it's also like this is who he is now. He's not going to pretend-

Edward Norton 24:23 Right.

Joe Rogan 24:24 ... that he's just wants to bring strippers in and have them ride the steed every day.

Edward Norton 24:27 Right.

Joe Rogan 24:27 And when people get upset that he's changed, well, I hope you change too, man.

Edward Norton 24:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:31 I hope everybody changes.

Edward Norton 24:32 No, that's what I mean. I admire, I mean, true-

Joe Rogan 24:34 Yeah.

Edward Norton 24:34 ... it's true, it's, it's not quite Dylan when he was 24 and being anointed, plugging in a guitar, but I do think it's when people sort of go, "Hey, uh, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna be where I am."

Joe Rogan 24:48 Yes.

Edward Norton 24:48 And, and you gotta deal with it.

Joe Rogan 24:51 Right.

Edward Norton 24:51 Uh, uh, that's positive, I think.

Joe Rogan 24:53 Well, it's definitely better than leaning into it and being what people want you to be-

Edward Norton 24:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:57 ... and then be struggling with that and tortured by that.

Edward Norton 25:01 I actually think most of the, most of people who... I think that mostly ends up badly.

Joe Rogan 25:05 Yes. Yes. Yeah, I think whenever you don't go with whoever you actually are, and whenever you don't acknowledge that whoever you actually are has changed, you know, if y- you're growing and learning and having these epiphanies and these realizations about yourself and where you fit into your own life and how you've interacted with people in your life, you're not making adjustments and you're only doing it that way because you think that's what people expect of you.

Edward Norton 25:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 25:28 Well, you're, you're a prisoner to your own first incarnation.

Edward Norton 25:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:33 You know, the, the first thing that people saw, and that was Kinison, the, "Ah, ah, ah."

Edward Norton 25:36 Right.

Joe Rogan 25:37 And he was a, kind of a prisoner to that forever.

Edward Norton 25:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:41 And acknowledged it, you know?

Edward Norton 25:42 Yeah. That's why, it's why anybody who, um, any- it's not even act two, anybody, anybody who sh- who can, who keeps doing interesting things through phases, uh, is even more impressive.

Joe Rogan 25:57 Yeah. That's also, is it hard as an actor too if you, if you get an iconic role and then you are sort of always remembered for being that guy in that thing? Like, how, how much of a, is i- is it a hard transition to go from an iconic role to n- d- going into your next role where people still wanna talk about the y- the, the big movie that you were in just a, a year or two ago?

Edward Norton 26:23 Mm, I, it's never, that hasn't been a big thing for me. I, um, I think, uh, I take, I tend to take a bit of time between things. Um, and also, I, I don't know, when I, you know, like the first thing I did w- kind of popped off pretty hot and then, and then everyone's like sending me like (laughs) pss- you know, psycho, psychotic-

Joe Rogan 26:54 Right.

Edward Norton 26:54 ... psychotic interesting characters and I was like, "Well, I think I'll do a musical with Woody Allen."

Joe Rogan 26:59 (laughs)

Edward Norton 26:59 You know what I mean? And, um, wear a plaid jacket and-

Joe Rogan 27:02 Yeah.

Edward Norton 27:02 ... do a dance number in Harry Winston's like, like-

Joe Rogan 27:05 Just switch it up.

Edward Norton 27:05 Yeah, or, or and, um, and then what's really weird is like in that first, I did a, I played this lawyer, I played a young lawyer in the Larry Flint film, right?

Joe Rogan 27:14 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 27:15 Which, um, and off of that, I got, I get this distinct vibe of like, "Hey, the next John Grisham movie is c- like, you, the l- the way you were talking in court in that movie, you would kill in this John Grisham thing as the young lawyer," whatever. And, um, and, uh, I remember I met, um, Francis Coppola was gonna direct The Rainmaker, this Grisham thing, and I was up for it. I didn't get it, Matt Damon got it. Um, and I, I didn't do some ballsy thing and like say, "That's not for me." I was like-

Joe Rogan 27:46 (laughs)

Edward Norton 27:46 I was like, "Francis Coppola," I was like, "I want this," you know?

Joe Rogan 27:49 Yeah.

Edward Norton 27:49 The thing, but I, when I was talking to him about it, um, and thinking to myself a little bit like, "This seems a little square, but it's like Francis Coppola," you know what I mean? And it's like, uh, and, and he, when I was talking to him about it, he was like, "Well, what, you know, what, what are you int- what are you working on? What are you interested in?" And I was telling him about my friend David who had written, uh, this American History X and that we were working on it. I was kind of telling him what we were trying to do with it and how we wanted to make it as this kind of like guerrilla, you know, thing. And he was like, "You should do that. You should do that immediately." And I was like, "Well, I wanna..." I, I was like, "Don't, don't t-" I, I was like, "Don't cancel, don't, don't," you know? "I still wanna do this with you." He's like, "No, no, I think you should do," y- like, "The way you're talking about that," and he said, "If you do that now, they'll never, they'll never know what to do with you. Like, they'll never be, they'll never be able" ill, to put you in a box."

Joe Rogan 28:46 Right.

Edward Norton 28:46 Kind of, um, uh, because that's just, you know, if you pull that off... And it, and I kind of was like, I, you know, it, it, I did have an agent at the time who was really old school, really funny, and he was kind of like, he didn't understand that w- uh, he, he was like, he was like, "Find something big. Let's find something big. Big director, big film, big franchise, whatever." And I, I remember thinking like, "Nah, I think I'm gonna do this." And, um, and we knocked that off. And the funny thing is you say, "Well, does that become a trap?" It, that wasn't a trap. That was like a liberation. It's almost like doing that part, it was like a permanent hand grenade on, it was like now, w- it was like, well, uh, we never know what to expect now.

Joe Rogan 29:30 Right.

Edward Norton 29:30 Right? So it's, it becomes like liberation-

Joe Rogan 29:33 Ah.

Edward Norton 29:33 ... on a s- at a certain point, 'cause, like I weigh 150. You know, like I'm not big, so like once you do something like that, it's sort of like, "Hm, w- when, th- this guy's, this guy's (laughs) this guy's kinky. What the hell are we gonna"

Narrator 29:47 (laughs)

Edward Norton 29:47 "do with him?" You know what I mean? Um-

Joe Rogan 29:49 Right.

Edward Norton 29:49 And then it's just sort of like, uh, you get to decide for yourself in a way.

Joe Rogan 29:54 That's brilliant.... yeah, like Robert Downey Jr., as amazing as he is, is always gonna be Iron Man. Like that, sometimes you get one of those roles, you know, like, uh, Thor, Chris Hemsworth-

Edward Norton 30:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:04 ... he's fucking Thor. Dude, you're Thor forever. You know? You flirted with that.

Edward Norton 30:09 Uh, uh, it depends on h- and it- Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:10 ... and I think it depends on how many of 'em you do.

Edward Norton 30:12 W- when you did the Hulk, were you worried about that? A l- a little bit.

Joe Rogan 30:17 Was there any hesitation?

Edward Norton 30:18 A little bit. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:18 'Cause I was surprised when you did that.

Edward Norton 30:20 I g- I got-

Joe Rogan 30:20 I was like, "This is an interesting choice."

Edward Norton 30:21 I g- well, as is evident, I got more worried about it. Uh, you know, I, I, I was, I was very interested because I loved it. I, I, I'm not like snobby about cr-... I loved those, like, comics and I-

Joe Rogan 30:35 Me too.

Edward Norton 30:35 ... I subscribed to 'em.

Joe Rogan 30:36 Yeah.

Edward Norton 30:37 I, I subscribed to Hulk. I, um, all the darker st- like Dark Knight, Frank Miller-

Joe Rogan 30:43 Sure.

Edward Norton 30:44 ... all the whole... All of it was really r- you know, it was, it was, um, it, it, it was, it was something I really latched onto and, and I loved the Bill Bixby, uh, Hulk. Yeah, like he's it for me. He's alway-

Joe Rogan 31:00 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 31:01 For anyone our age, like, he's-

Joe Rogan 31:02 Yeah.

Edward Norton 31:02 ... you know, him walking away at the end of the show-

Joe Rogan 31:04 Yeah.

Edward Norton 31:05 ... that's it. Um, and I d- I, I, so yeah, no, I, I, I thought i-... Uh, I tend to get... Just the way I felt about American History X, I actually thought American History X was sort of like Othello or MacBeth. I thought it was... That's what I said to David. He had written this kinda edgy thing with a drug plot in it, and I was like, "I think you strip all that away, and you literally just make this about rage destroying a person who's got a lot in him." It's like, it's like a Shakespearean tragedy but it's just... It's skinheads, you know? And that, and that really lit David up, and that's where we went with that, right? But Hulk ha- Hulk is like the, um, it's, uh, Prometheus, right? The guy-

Joe Rogan 31:49 Yeah.

Edward Norton 31:49 ... who steals fire from the gods for people but he gets burned doing it, and is cursed, right? He, he, he's trying to take, like, the power of nature back out to people from the gods and he gets burned. And that's how I, that's how I thought about it. I was like, "If we could do something like that, that leans into this guy who thinks he's going for something good that's gonna help humanity, and he cracks open, like, the backside of God and, and takes something out that is not meant to be taken out, and now he's cursed. Like, cursed, you know?" That, that's what was amazing. Even as silly as the show was on some levels, Bill Bixby was cursed.

Joe Rogan 32:30 Yeah.

Edward Norton 32:31 Like, that's what... And the end of every show, you were like, "Oh my God, he's still-"

Joe Rogan 32:35 This poor bastard.

Edward Norton 32:35 "... cursed." Like-

Joe Rogan 32:36 Yeah.

Edward Norton 32:36 ... alone in the world and cursed, right? And there's something pretty, pretty heavy in that, like, pretty cool in that. And, uh, and so, so it was, it wasn't, um, it, uh, you know, I d- I thought it was, like, really worth a crack.

Joe Rogan 32:52 I fucking loved it. How did that scene come to play where you were with Rickson Gracie?

Edward Norton 32:58 Oh, 'cause I, 'cause I was... I studied Aikido-

Joe Rogan 33:01 Oh.

Edward Norton 33:01 ... when I was in college. Um, I, I was studying Aikido, um, and then w- w- when I was studying Aikido, uh, um, Royce Gracie won the... You know, that was w- when I did it.

Joe Rogan 33:17 The Ultimate Fighting Championship?

Edward Norton 33:18 That was like the late '80s, right?

Joe Rogan 33:19 1993.

Edward Norton 33:20 '93, okay.

Joe Rogan 33:21 Close.

Edward Norton 33:22 Yeah, so he-

Joe Rogan 33:22 Five years later.

Edward Norton 33:23 Right, so but he... I became aware... Oh, no, that's it. That, you're right. You're right, 'cause I was in New York. I was studying Aikido in New York, and, and Royce Gracie won that first UFC. And like I said, I'm, I'm six feet tall but I... Literally, if I'm in shape, I weigh like 155, right? And Royce, when he won that, was-

Joe Rogan 33:45 176.

Edward Norton 33:45 ... like six feet-

Joe Rogan 33:47 Yeah, yep.

Edward Norton 33:47 ... and under 180, right?

Joe Rogan 33:48 Yep.

Edward Norton 33:48 And I remem- it melted everybody's mind.

Joe Rogan 33:51 Yeah.

Edward Norton 33:51 I mean, it melted everybody's mind. And I, um... So I, I became interested in them and, and what they were doing honestly... Do you, do you know that, um... You know in the story, in their, in that family's whole crazy story about being, um... You know, they were Scotte- uh, th- the grandfather was Scottish, right?

Joe Rogan 34:13 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 34:13 And he was like a, a consler, a c-... He was a customs, he was a customs official in Brazil, and because he had a good relationship with the Japanese consul and helped, was, was very generous in helping Japanese people get their papers to come through and in, the Japanese consul, I think the story is, who s- who knew Aikido and jujitsu offered to, like, teach his sons.

Joe Rogan 34:41 Yeah, it was Count Maeda.

Edward Norton 34:42 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 34:43 Yeah, who came to, he came to Brazil and taught Carlos and Rorion and, and Helio. Well, well, mostly Helio.

Edward Norton 34:51 Who are the fat-

Joe Rogan 34:51 Helio, yes.

Edward Norton 34:51 ... who are the fathers of the Royce VI generation, right?

Joe Rogan 34:53 And, and then G- Helio's y- oldest son, I think, I think, uh, Rorion was the oldest son. He's the one who created the Ultimate Fighting Championship. But Rickson, the r- reason why it was so significant that you had him is that was the champion of the family. Like-

Edward Norton 35:06 Right.

Joe Rogan 35:06 ... undeniably, undisputed, everyone, everyone throughout jujitsu.

Edward Norton 35:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:12 This, it's very, very rare that one figure is universally recognized as being the superior product of jujitsu, and that was Rickson.

Edward Norton 35:21 Yeah, and you alwa- I-

Joe Rogan 35:22 Yeah.

Edward Norton 35:22 If you followed that stuff at all, you kind of-

Joe Rogan 35:24 Yes.

Edward Norton 35:25 ... heard that breakdown of it, and-

Joe Rogan 35:26 Yeah.

Edward Norton 35:28 I thought, I thought a part of the story... I think Rickson told me when we were in Rio, I think what he said to me was that the reason Gracie Jujitsu became its particular derivation and its particular kind of things that allowed Royce to do so well was because their father was smaller-

Joe Rogan 35:51 Yes.

Edward Norton 35:51 ... than his brothers.

Joe Rogan 35:52 That's Helio, yeah.

Edward Norton 35:53 Right, and he, and bec- and they were all bigger, and because he was smaller, he adapted-

Joe Rogan 35:59 Yes.

Edward Norton 35:59 You know?... he adapted the style to work for a smaller person against a bigger person-

Joe Rogan 36:04 Yes.

Edward Norton 36:04 ... obviously. And, um, and then that kind of like reached its, its pinnacle with Royce winning that-

Joe Rogan 36:10 Yes.

Edward Norton 36:11 ... that tournament. Which, which, which I, this, this gets down in the weeds for people who aren't into this stuff, but the, but it was, I mean, that was m- m- that w- th- you talk about these things, the cracking through moment, right?

Joe Rogan 36:21 Yes.

Edward Norton 36:21 That was a cracking through moment. It was like, wait a minute, a guy his size just literally won an all form, all size tournament. Like how is that possible? You know what I mean? And it was like, it was like jaw hits floor. And to me, what was really interesting was I was really little all the way until literally the end of high school, I was very small. I grew a lot, um, in my like, when I was like 17. But I was really interested in Japan and I was interested in martial arts and, you know, James Clavell Shogun, like not-

Joe Rogan 36:54 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 36:54 ... you know. And, um, and I would take, I, I took like a karate class and it scared me. I, I, it w- people w- if they were bigger and faster, it was just scary. If you were little, it was like, I can't, it doesn't matter if I can do these combos or whatever, in truth, I'm terrified of anybody bigger than me, and I don't feel that this is teaching me anything that I would have the confidence to y- to use to defend myself, right? That's how I felt as a kid.

Joe Rogan 37:22 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 37:22 And when I, when I bumped into Aikido, I, it completely changed my mind. The guy, there was an incredible teacher in New Haven when I was in college. And he was small, he was like Hoy- you know, maybe smaller than Royce Gracie or whatever, and the guy was unbelievably like potent, like just incr- one of the most potent teachers in anything I ever had. I was riveted by this guy. And, um, and, uh, and it kinda started to make me believe that with grap- grappling and locking, which there's a lot of, there's a lot of jujitsu in Aikido.

Joe Rogan 37:58 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 37:59 And I was sort of like f- I was fascinated. I started feeling like this w- this, this makes me feel like I ... it's not like kicking someone's ass at all, it's just more like I feel more empowered, I feel, I feel able-

Joe Rogan 38:12 You're not helpless.

Edward Norton 38:13 ... able to handle an authentic situation.

Joe Rogan 38:16 Yes.

Edward Norton 38:16 Um, which is as mentally empowering more than like, I wanna get into scraps.

Joe Rogan 38:21 Right.

Edward Norton 38:22 And it was just kind of amazing. It's like having a secret in a way, like, whoa, there's a secret to a much smaller person being able to lever a much bigger person. And then that thing happened with the Gracies and it was sort of like the whole thing cracked open. It was like this, it was like proof-

Joe Rogan 38:37 Yes.

Edward Norton 38:37 ... in a way, you know? And, and if you were interested in that stuff, it was an incredible moment. But because my interest in that for years, when we went to Rio, Rio and I had been working on the script of that movie and stuff, and I was like, I was really interested in this idea that Banner is, is desperate for control, right? That he desperately, desperately needs to control his heart rate, his breathing, that it's a massive liability in his mind if he can't control his emotions and his adrenaline. And I was like, well, who in the world ... And, and I'd, I'd seen the videos of Hick- c- I'd never met him or any of them, but I'd seen the videos of him doing the, um, amazing stuff with his stomach.

Joe Rogan 39:20 Yeah, the yoga.

Edward Norton 39:20 And yeah, the breathing.

Joe Rogan 39:21 Yeah, fire breathing.

Edward Norton 39:21 And I was like, and I, I just was like, "We have to ..." And, and everyone was like, "Who's that?" I was like, "You guys."

Joe Rogan 39:25 (laughs)

Edward Norton 39:26 I was like, I was like, "Philistines, you're all Philistines."

Joe Rogan 39:29 (laughs)

Edward Norton 39:29 Like, I was like, and I was like, "Find me Rickson Gracie and ask him if he'll do a scene with me in the movie being the guy who's training Banner to like, calm himself." And he was there and he d- and he did it with us.

Joe Rogan 39:41 Wow.

Edward Norton 39:41 And it was like, I was like ...

Joe Rogan 39:43 Yeah, there it is right here.

Edward Norton 39:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:45 Yeah. When I saw this in the movie, I was like, "Oh fuck yeah. Like, what a smart move."

Edward Norton 39:52 Yeah. And I was like ... I was-

Joe Rogan 39:57 Yeah.

Edward Norton 39:57 ... I was like, yeah, see? I got, I forgot this. Holy crap, I haven't looked at this in a long time. He's, look how charismatic he is too.

Joe Rogan 40:04 He's amazing.

Edward Norton 40:04 I mean, the guy, the guy could've been like Charles Bronson.

Joe Rogan 40:07 100%.

Edward Norton 40:07 Like a movie star.

Joe Rogan 40:08 Did you ever see Choke the documentary?

Edward Norton 40:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:11 One of the greatest documentaries in the, in, in history and-

Edward Norton 40:14 It's like Pumping Iron.

Joe Rogan 40:14 ... ab- absolutely, yeah.

Edward Norton 40:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:15 Absolutely for martial arts. And it r- it, uh, it details Rickson's j- uh, journeys to Japan, the fight in Japan, Vale Tudo, which was around '94, which is right after his brother had won the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Edward Norton 40:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:27 And the story was that if his brother lost, Rickson was going in. Like, the idea was like, "Well, bring in Royce because it's more impressive. He's a smaller man. He's not physically imposing." Whereas Rickson in that video there, he was older. When he was young, he was, you know, very fit and he was big into yoga and physical fitness, and he had the strongest body of all the Gracies.

Edward Norton 40:48 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:48 Like, he looked very formidable.

Edward Norton 40:50 Right.

Joe Rogan 40:50 Whereas Royce looked unassuming. And it was e- more of an advertisement of jujitsu if Royce could beat everybody, and Royce wound up doing. But if, and any reason-

Edward Norton 40:59 Right.

Joe Rogan 40:59 ... if they needed to bring the big gun-

Edward Norton 41:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:01 ... it was gonna be Rickson. And Royce always talked about it, like Rickson could tap him left and right.

Edward Norton 41:05 Right.

Joe Rogan 41:06 And everybody was like, "That doesn't even make sense."

Edward Norton 41:08 Right.

Joe Rogan 41:08 "Royce is the Ultimate Fighting Champion."

Edward Norton 41:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:10 "He's the guy." But his brother would just run right through him.

Edward Norton 41:12 Unbelievable.

Joe Rogan 41:13 He'd run right, he would run right through everybody. He would, they would have a line of black belts d- and they would, they would all wait for their turn to get tapped and they would roll with Rickson and he would just dismantle everybody, people that thought they understood jujitsu. It's so, there, there's so many levels and layers to jujitsu that e- even though it looks like, what is the difference? This guy's doing an arm bar, you're doing an arm bar. There's specifics in the-

Edward Norton 41:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:35 ... intricate aspects of the positions that Rickson understood that they just didn't understand. And then on top of that, he had much greater control of his body because of his yoga background.

Edward Norton 41:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:45 I mean, he, he became obsessed with yoga.

Edward Norton 41:46 And breathing.

Joe Rogan 41:47 Yes, and breathing, and, and something called gymnastica, uh, natural, which was like a, a style of movement that was like, uh, sort of like Vinyasa yoga with all these like flowing postures, but also with a bunch of like almost like animal movements to it too.

Edward Norton 42:02 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:02 And it was a, uh, very physically demanding thing. And he became, uh, uh, outstanding at that as well. All right.

Edward Norton 42:08 (coughs)

Joe Rogan 42:08 (laughs)

Edward Norton 42:09 Sorry. Um-

Joe Rogan 42:09 But it's, uh, people don't, th- from the outside, when you start talking about things like jujitsu and ultimate fighting, you think of like as brutal, violent, but it's an intellectual pursuit and it's a spiritual pursuit because to be the person that can overcome all of the obstacles, you have to have m- incredible control of your emotions and your thought processes and your understanding of who you are. And that, I think, is one of the things that separated Rickson from everybody.

Edward Norton 42:33 I do too. I also think that, um, I think that people don't realize that, um, a lot of, a lot of stress, a lot of aggression, um, it's like aggression actually is like paired with stress usually. You know what I mean? You, you, it's hard to be aggress- super aggressive without a little bit of like adrenaline pumping and stress and all these things. And the truth is like, um, there's so, so much of the training i- if you're actually training stuff, what you're training yourself to do is be calm. That, and that's like totally counterintuitive-

Joe Rogan 43:06 Right.

Edward Norton 43:06 ... because people think, no, you gotta go in there like Rocky and, you know, wanna win. And it's like, well, in a fighting config, in, in a competition, sure, on some level, but really, really, really great people, kind of in any sport, but it's even more counterintuitive in fighting is, is they, is you need to cultivate calm.

Joe Rogan 43:26 Yes.

Edward Norton 43:26 And the ability to, to, to, to be clinical and think calmly, control your breathing because like you get exhausted if you can't control your breathing. And, and the truth is, is that those are life skills that are actually very disi- they, they cultivate a very, uh, a pe- calm. They, it helps you cultivate calm in life. And the thing I always really liked about Aikido, um, is that there aren't attacks in it. It, it, it, it was developed by a guy, Morihei Ueshiba, who was a, he was an all around jujitsu master. He was like in jujitsu, kendo, um, karate, all these things. And he, he developed Aikido because he had joined the global pacifist movement.

Joe Rogan 44:13 Hmm.

Edward Norton 44:13 He, he, he was like a, one of the most respected, like cross form Japanese martial artists. And he became, he joined the same, um, movement for pacifism that Gandhi was a part of in like the '20s. And he, he believed that martial arts could contribute to, uh, pacifism if they refined. And he, and Aikido was a refinement of kendo, jujitsu, judo. Um, and, and he basically said, "I'm gonna develop a non-aggressive martial art that has all, it has no attacks." And there's an uke in it like for the thing, but it's only a defensive. And it's like that, that phrase we all hear, redirection of energy.

Joe Rogan 44:58 Yeah.

Edward Norton 44:58 The conversion of negative energy into, into neutral. That's like the, that's his, that is really his contribution. He was like, you can take, you can take the most aggressive energy and you can neutralize it. And you can neutralize it very peacefully or you can neutralize it with a little more teeth in it, depending on how aggressive the person's being. But I loved that. I thought that was amazing because it was like, I, I wasn't like looking to be in fights, but I loved the idea that you had con- that you could have control and you could like neutralize. And, and I, I think, I think there's something kind of amazing in that. I think it's like actually aligns with like yoga, with, with meditation, w- with all, all things, surfing. I mean, I, I, that's what surfing is. It's like there's all this energy coming at you, like, and it's gonna like put you into the rocks or rock you or flip you over or hurt you, and you, but you, you do- you don't let that happen. You kind of, you look at it, you look at a million waves, you figure out how to move yourself, you get in there, and you get the exact opposite of getting torched. You get like the best thing ever, right? And I, I, I think things like that that are, where you have to, those are like zen, you know what I mean? And I think j- like jujitsu, what real- what you're saying is really ultimately like why he was great is he had, he ha- he had like the deepest zen-

Joe Rogan 46:18 Yeah.

Edward Norton 46:18 ... of anybody in the whole thing 'cause he was the calmest. And he had like the micro, micro, micro, micro understanding of forms, but really like it's something deeper. It's like he, it, it, it's like Neo in The Matrix. He's like seeing it w- with more granularity.

Joe Rogan 46:35 Yeah. He had everything.

Edward Norton 46:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:36 He had the full package of it. Did you ever see any of Steven Seagal when he was very young?

Edward Norton 46:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:42 When he was-

Edward Norton 46:42 Yep.

Joe Rogan 46:42 ... teaching in Japan?

Edward Norton 46:43 I was totally fas- I mean, it's like, and it's really-

Joe Rogan 46:46 It's weird, right?

Edward Norton 46:47 ... like, like me, right?

Joe Rogan 46:47 Yeah. (laughs)

Edward Norton 46:48 Like act, like, like serious actor-

Joe Rogan 46:50 Right.

Edward Norton 46:50 ... thoughtful actor. I'm like, "What did," you know, but I, like Above the Law?

Joe Rogan 46:55 Yeah.

Edward Norton 46:55 Because I was into all that stuff when Above the Law came out and there was this scene in Above the Law and he's in an Aikido, you know, gi with the black thing and he's doing his things. And I was riv, I was like, "Oh my God." Like, like, "This is so cool." Like when have you ever seen this in a movie?

Joe Rogan 47:12 Yeah.

Edward Norton 47:13 And, um, and he was a, you know, big guy.

Joe Rogan 47:15 And he made it violent.

Edward Norton 47:16 Yeah. Big and-

Joe Rogan 47:16 It's a very unusual sort of contribution to martial arts because m- in martial arts movies.

Edward Norton 47:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:22 He made it realistic.

Edward Norton 47:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:23 Like it was one of the most realistic martial arts movies ever.

Edward Norton 47:26 Yeah. It was, and, you know, when you look back on it, it, it (laughs) there's things about it that don't date super well.

Joe Rogan 47:31 Yeah. Of course. But he-

Edward Norton 47:33 But, um-

Joe Rogan 47:33 ... was undeniably-

Edward Norton 47:34 But literally, like literally what you just showed-

Joe Rogan 47:36 ... skillful. Yeah.

Edward Norton 47:36 The thing, the thing of the guy coming, it's that simple thing-

Joe Rogan 47:39 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 47:39 ... that thrust and the break and the thing. It's, um-

Joe Rogan 47:41 Yes.

Edward Norton 47:42 He also, in the film, um, when the guys come at him, and I, see this just shows you how it burns your brain, there's a scene where there's in a, like a bodega and the guy, I think he smashes a bottle and he comes at him and he does like a mo- a move.

Joe Rogan 47:56 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 47:56 In Aikido it's called like kotegaeshi. It's like he, um, it's like the wrist, you know, it's like the, the wrist break flip over. And it was just like, oh my God, like he's doing, he's doing like, you know, nuanced-... Aikido moves in a big action movie. It was kinda cool.

Joe Rogan 48:12 Well, he was one of the first, I think the first, westerner to run a dojo in Japan. I mean, he was a legitimate Aikido master.

Edward Norton 48:19 Yeah. And I think ... But what's interesting is when I studied over there, he was (sucks in breath) it was controv- it, it was slightly controversial because I don't think he was ... He'd broken away from, like, like, Ueshiba-

Joe Rogan 48:30 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 48:31 ... um, Aikido. He was doing, he was doing ... Like the way that Gracie Jujitsu is not pure Japanese Jujitsu.

Joe Rogan 48:38 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 48:38 He was doing something with the s- ... It was somehow it was associated more with Osaka than Tokyo where the Hombu Dojo in Aikido is. And, I ... There was-

Joe Rogan 48:48 Some controversy.

Edward Norton 48:48 Yeah. It, it ... There was, there was just, you know, like the way things are with schools of thought.

Joe Rogan 48:52 Mm.

Edward Norton 48:53 But, um, but yeah, he had a certain legit kind of thing. And it's really wild, 'cause people like Mike Ovitz, who was, like, the power agent of all of Hollywood in the '80s, you know, Mike got a black belt training with Seagal. Like, he was really serious Aikidoist. Um ...

Joe Rogan 49:10 I didn't know that.

Edward Norton 49:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:11 That makes sense.

Edward Norton 49:12 Yeah, it does.

Joe Rogan 49:13 But, but he's a cautionary tale too though.

Edward Norton 49:15 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:16 I mean, not even Ovitz. I mean, uh, Seagal, you know-

Edward Norton 49:19 Yeah. I-

Joe Rogan 49:20 ... what he become.

Edward Norton 49:21 I guess, I ... Honestly, my, my ... I, I don't know anything about him, uh, past a certain point. Like, I, I, I, I don't know what went on there. Um ...

Joe Rogan 49:34 Yeah.

Edward Norton 49:35 But, uh-

Joe Rogan 49:35 We could leave it at that. (laughs)

Edward Norton 49:36 Yeah. I, I, I, I don't. Um-

Joe Rogan 49:38 Tell me about your new movie. Let's leave it at that.

Edward Norton 49:40 Um, it's called Motherless Brooklyn. Uh, it's ... It was a, you know, it was kind of a big swing 'cause I wrote it and I produced it and-

Joe Rogan 49:52 Is this the first time you've done that?

Edward Norton 49:54 ... directed it. Um, I ... No. I, I produced and directed the ... The first movie I, uh, directed is Keeping the Faith with ... It's, um, m- it's a ... Me and Ben Stiller play a rabbi and a priest who are best friends, and they, and they both fall for the same girl. Uh, did you ever see that one?

Joe Rogan 50:11 No, I didn't. (laughs)

Edward Norton 50:12 It's funny, yeah, you'd like it. Um, Ben is hilarious in it. Uh, that was obviously lighter, um, that was a lighter, uh, kind of movie. But it was in ... I'm ... I've lived in New York thir- almost 30 years and I like making movies in New York a lot. That was a pretty light one. This one is more, um ... This takes place in the '50s in New York and it's kind of, um ... It's got a Chinatown, LA confidential kind of a noir, um, bent to it. It's a, it's a mystery, a murder mystery of kind of ... that leads into some of the stuff that happened in New York in the '50s that is hard to believe. Um, because New York was, New York was run by, um, an, uh, uh ... It was run by basically a Darth Vader-like figure who was never elected to public office and pe- ... Excuse me, people thought he was the Parks Commissioner of New York, but he was ... For n- n- ... From 1930 to 1968 he had uncontested authoritarian power over New York City and New York State. And he made every significant decision about the way that the modern infrastructure of New York was built, where the roads went, where the bridges were built, what was torn down, where the projects were built. He, um ... And he was very racist and he baked, like, really discriminatory things that almost sound like conspiracy theory they're so wild and intense into the decisions he made. He was responsible for the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn and going to LA. And nobody knows this. Like, they-

Joe Rogan 51:46 Wow.

Edward Norton 51:46 You think of N- New York is the great ... That's like the great egalitarian melting pot city where democracy works, except that it was run by a total autocrat.

Joe Rogan 51:54 For 38 years?

Edward Norton 51:55 Yeah, for, for ... He, he's largely ... It's broadly accepted that no mayor or governor of New York could do a single thing without his say so from basically about 1930 to about 1968.

Joe Rogan 52:09 How is that even possible?

Edward Norton 52:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:10 And how, how come no one knows about this? How did you find out?

Edward Norton 52:12 People d- ... Well, people do. There's, there's, there's hu- ... Like, in one of the big, um, Burns Brothers documentaries about New York, there's a whole, literally almost a whole episode on him. Um, there's a great book about him, uh, that won the Pulitzer Prize, and there's, uh ... His name was Robert Moses and he ... You know, there's Robert Moses State Beach in New York, and ... But literally people think he was the Parks Commissioner but he was ... And he was like Anakin Skywalker. I ... He, he was like a Jedi Knight. He was a big liberal, progressive believer in progressive change and government reform, and in his early years he got crushed by Tammany Hall and, and the power brokers and he went, he went dark, went complete-

Joe Rogan 52:54 (laughs)

Edward Norton 52:55 Yeah. That's not the most imposing picture of him that you've got up.

Joe Rogan 52:58 That's an-

Edward Norton 52:58 There's other ones.

Joe Rogan 52:59 No, that's a, that's an imposing picture.

Edward Norton 53:00 Find one of the ones of him ... Find one of the ones of him standing in front of his models. There's famous ones of him. Um-

Joe Rogan 53:05 That looks like a man of will.

Edward Norton 53:06 Yeah, well actually, uh, to, to the left of that, and keep going to the left of that. Um, 'cause there's a scene in our movie where Alec Baldwin is literally l- like that, yeah. That he ... Alec Baldwin essent- plays a character who's based on, in him. Inspired by him, I should say.

Joe Rogan 53:20 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 53:20 It's not at all ... In my film it's not the true story. But yeah, there you go. Um, and, um ... But I think this idea ... I was really interested in this idea ... You know, what's great about Chinatown as a film is, um, it's mostly sexy. The m- ... You, you don't know what the hell is going on in that movie. Like, until the, until 20 minutes before the end you have absolutely no idea really what's going on in that movie, but it's just sexy. It's like the music is amazing, the photography's incredible, the actors are, like, adult and real and he's, he's Nicholson, right?

Joe Rogan 53:56 Right.

Edward Norton 53:56 You ... The hook is, like, Nicholson is so cool you really will kind of follow him. You'll watch the way he deals with anything and just, you're just laughing and enjoying it, right? But underneath it all when you're done you go-... did that, is that true? Did LA, is LA basically built on stolen water? Is that like the, like, LA's original sin is that people made fortunes, the valley was just farms, and they stole the water from up north and, you know, rigged the game and made these gigantic fortunes by irrigating San Fernando Valley? And you, you, you come away with like, you come away with an awareness that, like, the California story's not exactly what it's cracked up to be. Right? It's, there's some big crimes underneath it and, and the people who d- and, and that, in that movie, it's like, yeah, the p- people ripped everybody off. They faked droughts. They, they created fortunes for themselves, and the type of people who did that also raped their daughters. Literally, that's like what that movie is about. It's, um... And it, and it's pretty bleak. It's like you can't make a difference. You cannot change anything. Like, and if you try, the person you're trying to help is gonna end up with a bullet through her eye, dead on the steering wheel. Like, it's, it's a really dark movie. And people forget that because you just go, "Oh, Nicholson, Faye Dunaway." It's like, no, that's a, that's a really, really bleak movie. But I love, I love the idea that, that you can do things where like the, the f- the pleasure of it is like the pleasure of movies. It's grown up. It's kind of what we've been talking about. It's like, like if you said to most people, if you showed Chinatown to most critics today, they'd go, "Long, boring," whatever. It's like you wanna say, "Fuck off." Like, "Fuck off." Like, what, what is it that you w- who, why are you, why are you assuming people can't handle grown up? You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 55:56 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 55:57 And, and I think that, that I really dig those things where you go through... The movie starts. You look at it and you go, "This looks really good. This looks really grown up. This is big." The actors are like, like adult and authoritative. The dialogue's great. The music is great. It's hypnotic. And your brain just goes, "I don't know what's going on. I don't care. I'm bought in." And then, and if there's this, a character in it that you can hook into, you float, you float through those movies. You just kinda go, "Where's this going? What's going on? I d- Oh man, that guy. She's great. He's great. Wow." Like this is just all juicy and great, and by the end, you get somewhere and you kinda go, "I'll be damned. That actually was about big things. Did those things really happen?" You know? That's... I really dig those movies. I dig Chinatown, LA Confidential. Um, I think The Godfather works that way. The Godfather's about immigrants, you know? It's about immigrants normalizing in America. Y- you don't, it's like, that's a long movie.

Joe Rogan 56:58 Yeah.

Edward Norton 56:58 You just settle in for that movie.

Joe Rogan 56:59 Right.

Edward Norton 57:00 Your, your brain settles in and just goes, "This just couldn't be better. I couldn't be happier to be watching this scene after scene after scene."

Joe Rogan 57:08 The qu-

Edward Norton 57:09 And I, and I wanted to make... I wanted to try, I wanted to try to make one of those, you know? Uh, myself, like I wanted to try to, to, um, make one of those 'cause I don't... It's, it's cliche to say like, "They don't make those anymore," but-

Joe Rogan 57:25 Right.

Edward Norton 57:26 ... it, but I think, you know, they were always hard. It's not like they were easy once and now they're hard. They were a- they were always hard. But I, I would look at people like Warren Beatty. He made Reds, you know, which is one of the great movies from that era. Even like Spike Lee doing Do the Right Thing, I don't know if you remember when that movie hit.

Joe Rogan 57:45 Sure.

Edward Norton 57:46 It was massive.

Joe Rogan 57:47 Yes.

Edward Norton 57:47 It was a huge deal to m- I was like 18 or 19.

Joe Rogan 57:50 Yeah.

Edward Norton 57:51 I saw that movie, and I was like, "He just rewrote the game." Like, this kid, who the hell is th-

Joe Rogan 57:57 Right.

Edward Norton 57:57 He, he wrote it. He directed it. He acted in it. He got Public Enemy to do the music.

Joe Rogan 58:01 Yeah.

Edward Norton 58:01 It's about his neighborhood in New York, but it's about, like, race in America. It's like, "Oh my God. That guy just took like a huge swing and connected on-"

Joe Rogan 58:10 Yeah.

Edward Norton 58:10 "... like, every level and it didn't even give you some BS kind of like, 'Don't worry, it's gonna be okay in the end.'"

Joe Rogan 58:17 Right.

Edward Norton 58:17 It was like, "Martin Luther King says violence is not the way. Malcolm X says sometimes it's the only rational response. What do you think?" You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 58:27 Yeah.

Edward Norton 58:27 It was so ballsy. It was so ballsy, that movie. And I think like after a while, it's sort of like fr- I, I just started feeling like, "Well, you know, I don't really need to gig. I might as well... I've worked with a lot of great people. I've worked with some pretty great directors, including Spike." And I was kinda like, "I've been in New York a long time," and I just thought it was really weird no one knew that story. And I was like, "I'm gonna try to make one about this," you know?

Joe Rogan 58:55 As someone who doesn't make movies, I always wonder, like, what happened between like say Steve McQueen's Le Mans?

Edward Norton 59:02 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:02 You, did you ever see that movie?

Edward Norton 59:03 Of course, yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:04 You m- remember how there's no dialogue at all for like the longest time? And I remember I watched it recently within the last couple years, and one of the thoughts was, "I don't even know if they could do this today, if anybody would allow them to make a movie where no one talks for a long time." They're just sorta setting the stage of what it means to be a race car driver-

Edward Norton 59:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:24 ... and what's the atmosphere of the races. It's just the f- the idea that you were saying earlier about having this short attention span theater, this, this, the, these movies that are designed for what they believe is a populous and people that don't have the interest in something that's more unique or something that requires thought, something that drags you in.

Edward Norton 59:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:48 And that was much more common in the past. Like, why was it more common in, in that era of McQueen and all those other movies that they did like that? And what has happened? And like these rare examples, like when a guy does break through with something like Do the Right Thing-

Edward Norton 1:00:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:00:04 ... or a, uh, a, a, a few other examples, why doesn't that stimulate the, the appetite for more?

Edward Norton 1:00:11 Well-

Joe Rogan 1:00:11 Is it that hard to do?

Edward Norton 1:00:13 On one level, on one level, yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's easy to recognize when they're great, but-... it's still not e- it's still not easy to make them great. I, it's still ... We're talking about people who are some of our greatest artists or directors, you know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 1:00:35 Right.

Edward Norton 1:00:35 They, and lots of people, they try on some level, um, they try on some level, but they just, not everybody is Spike Lee.

Joe Rogan 1:00:44 Right.

Edward Norton 1:00:44 You know what I mean? Um, not everybody is Francis Coppola or, you know, it's, it's like, it, it, it ... People, people, sometimes people make things (laughs) and they actually are slow.

Joe Rogan 1:00:57 Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Edward Norton 1:00:57 You know what I mean? Like (laughs) -

Joe Rogan 1:00:58 It doesn't work, yeah.

Edward Norton 1:00:59 You know what I mean? You're like, it-

Joe Rogan 1:01:00 It misses. Yeah.

Edward Norton 1:01:01 It's like, it's like in Spinal Tap when they're like, "It's a f- it's a fine line between stupid and clev-" you know? (laughs) No. "It's a fine line between clever and stupid."

Joe Rogan 1:01:10 Yeah.

Edward Norton 1:01:10 You know what I mean? It's like, it's, it's, um ... I think people try, but, uh, I d- I think, I think that, uh, there are some people who really do think Jaws had a big effect on movies because it, it was, it was like the first true blockbuster, right? And ... I don't know. You know what, actually though? I'm, I'm, I'm wrong. I, I think that what happens more often than not is adult people get the jobs at the big companies that make the decisions about what to make, right? And at a certain point, they sort of age out. They start to age out, and they don't actually have any idea what, what w- the vibe is. They don't know what to make for the coming wave of younger people, and so these little windows open up now and then where, in that era, they needed, there was, they needed new people. They needed like, n- you know, George Lucas making American Graffiti. Nobody thought that movie was gonna be a hit. Nobody. You know? Um, th- they, they open up. They say, "We don't know what to do. Do something different." And a couple of new voices, like, come in and they make things that are, are really different, you know? But the idea that that was o- only then l- like, there's a whole book right now about 1999. You know, there's this book that came out about how 1999 was one of those years where because the studios had kinda lost their sense of exactly what to do and Miramax was making a shit ton of money on, on auteur-driven movies made for low cost and the studios all went and set up little mini Miramaxes, right? And the result was that, like, in that year, you had like mag- you know, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Alexander Payne, Spike Jones, David O. Russell, Fincher, the Wachowskis. Like, an unbelievable array of directors made really, really memorable films in that year, and I think it was because it was like another one of those moments like, "We, we, we don't know what to, we don't know what to do. We're just gonna have to like close our eyes and go, 'You kids, you kids figure it out.'"

Joe Rogan 1:03:38 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 1:03:38 You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 1:03:38 Well, that's the, the thing about films, it seems to me, uh, it's such a collaborative effort, and when you have so many moving pieces and so many people involved that have a d- a, an, a say in the decision-making process, it's gotta be insanely difficult to get something out that's pure.

Edward Norton 1:03:55 Yes. That's true. That's true. I, Francis Coppola said that, um, "The best thing about making films is that they're collaborative, and the worst thing about making films is that they're collaborative." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:04:09 (laughs)

Edward Norton 1:04:09 And he also said, "It's the last, it's the last moral, totalitarian, um, job in the world," like being a director or something. I can't remember. But i- it's true. You, you, it's, it's a very, um, 'cause like I made this movie. I had like, I had, um, a fraction of like the budget of The Irishman, right? I'm just, which I'm naming only 'cause it was a, a period piece, you know? Mine's in the '50s. That one's across the things. And, and I had like, like, l- less days to do it than I had on my first movie that I directed. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:04:43 How many days did you have to do it?

Edward Norton 1:04:45 F- like 46, which for perspective, Fight Club was 130-day shoot. Um, and, and 46 days is less than most movies I've made, and this was a big 1950s like period film with a huge like French Connection-style char- car chase in the opening running through Harlem, across the bridge, down into Queens. You know, we weren't, we weren't like making a little kitchen sink drama. Um, and to figure that out, that is like, you can be like, "I'm the v- I got the vision. We're gonna do this." But there's a kinda madness in saying, "This is what I wanna do. I wanna recreate the old Penn Station that doesn't exist anymore," right? Which we have in the film, like my character goes into the old Penn Station that was torn down in 1963 or whatever, and, um, and you only pull that off with the most kickass Justice League of collaborators-

Joe Rogan 1:05:40 Yeah.

Edward Norton 1:05:40 ... imaginable. Like, they make you look like you're a visionary or know what you're doing because you get these people with crazy talents of their own, and I don't mean just cast, although I had that too in this. I mean like some of the very, very, very best people bring their, their talent to like making that work, and, um, and so that's like when you say like, your job is l- is more to say, "I have really talented people. I've got to get their frequency wave in line with mine. If I can get their frequency wave in line with mine, then it can be my, my idea, my vision, my weird ideas can be in there, but it's with, it's executed with the help of people who believe in it and buy into it." You know? That's, that's the key is like you're, you're, you're marshaling people w-... um, to get to i- in sync with you. And, um, and you know, I have a sick cast. It's like, uh, Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Willem Dafoe-

Joe Rogan 1:06:44 Huh.

Edward Norton 1:06:45 ... Bobby Cannavale, um, Michael K. Williams, who was, like, Omar on The Wire.

Joe Rogan 1:06:50 Wow.

Edward Norton 1:06:51 Uh, this great actress, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and, and Leslie Mann, and, you know, on and on and on. And I got... And all these people did this as a favor to me, uh, 'cause I didn't have any money to do it.

Joe Rogan 1:07:02 Wow.

Edward Norton 1:07:02 So from- starting with Bruce, Bruce was like... Uh, you know, he said to me a long time ago, "I'll... If you have something good, I wanna be in it. I really wanna do the kind of stuff you're doing, and I really mean it. I'll, I'll do anything you wanna do and help you get it done." I was like, "He's not gonna remember that."

Joe Rogan 1:07:18 (laughs)

Edward Norton 1:07:18 You know, he's gonna be like, "Sure, sure. But I'm doing Die Hard, like, for the rest of the year."

Joe Rogan 1:07:22 Right.

Edward Norton 1:07:22 And he didn't. He was like, "Where do you need me? I told you, I'm in."

Joe Rogan 1:07:25 Wow.

Edward Norton 1:07:25 "Let's get it done." And basically, Bruce, Alec, Willem, people like that, I practically call them co-financiers on my film 'cause they- I only got it done because they deferred everything, you know? And I think that's really cool.

Joe Rogan 1:07:39 That's amazing.

Edward Norton 1:07:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:40 When you write something like this car chase scene through Harlem, I mean, I would imagine the logistics of pulling something like that off, it's gotta be insane.

Edward Norton 1:07:49 It was, yeah, it's nuts. Like-

Joe Rogan 1:07:50 How does... When you wrote it and you brought it to the people that are the, the stunt people, the people that coordinate these chase scenes, were they like, "Oh, fuck."

Edward Norton 1:07:59 People get... People, yes. Um, you know, doing the things is not hard. Getting permission-

Joe Rogan 1:08:10 Yes.

Edward Norton 1:08:10 ... to do them in Manhattan is, is tricky. And there are people who look at you like, "You're dreaming, man."

Joe Rogan 1:08:18 Right.

Edward Norton 1:08:18 Like, you're not... And, and w- and you, what you do is you go out and scout, and you start... You say, "Look, this is the... We can do this here and this here, and this isn't hard, this isn't hard. We only need this one block cleared," and these things. Then, you, like, find that place where you're like, "I want him to do a huge screeching turn onto Frederick Douglass Boulevard because it has a nine-block stretch where there's very few buildings that don't look like they're in the '50s," right?

Joe Rogan 1:08:42 Ah.

Edward Norton 1:08:43 Leading up to a bridge that you want it to go over the bridge. And then, you get with, like, the guys at the NYPD, and you beg. Like, you just-

Joe Rogan 1:08:51 (laughs)

Edward Norton 1:08:51 ... beg. You go, "Look, we're gonna be like the Dirty Dozen. We're gonna have the, we're gonna... Everything is gonna be so well planned and ready to go, we'll be able to..." We'll say, "Just shut it down, and in 20 minutes, we'll be done." You know what I mean? Like, you, you start-

Joe Rogan 1:09:04 20 minutes?

Edward Norton 1:09:05 Well, no, just for a s- a shot.

Joe Rogan 1:09:06 Right, for one scene.

Edward Norton 1:09:07 You know, it's like we just need to do this once or twice to get this, this turn of the car around the corner and headed up the avenue with 80 cars from the '50s, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:09:19 And you're using legitimate 1950s cars-

Edward Norton 1:09:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:20 ... as well?

Edward Norton 1:09:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:21 So those things handle, like...

Edward Norton 1:09:23 They're horrible.

Joe Rogan 1:09:23 They're boats with wheels on them.

Edward Norton 1:09:25 So any car that's actually gotta be doing anything, like going fast or-

Joe Rogan 1:09:29 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 1:09:29 ... making a big turn, you have to have four of the same model that you've painted identically because they're going to break. Like, they will break. You'll push-

Joe Rogan 1:09:38 Yeah.

Edward Norton 1:09:38 ... one hard, it will break. And then, you have to, like, bring the other one in.

Joe Rogan 1:09:42 Wow.

Edward Norton 1:09:42 You know what I mean? So you, you, you... A- and you, you basically can't make them go fast, you know? They don't have pickup.

Joe Rogan 1:09:50 Right.

Edward Norton 1:09:51 So you're, you're figuring out, like, what are the moves we can make that make it feel like this thing is really bombing? And, um, and, uh, and how do we cross-cut around the fact that it takes three blocks for it to accelerate? I mean, like, literally to go from, you know, 10 miles an hour to 40, you need, like, literally, like, three or four blocks. So you have to, like, get it up to speed for the section that you want it going fast. And it's, it's, it's, um... I'm not doing another period movie.

Joe Rogan 1:10:19 (laughs)

Edward Norton 1:10:19 I'm doing a mo-... The next movie I'm doing is gonna have Tesla P100Ds-

Joe Rogan 1:10:23 (laughs)

Edward Norton 1:10:23 ... that go, like, 0 to 60 in 2.4.

Joe Rogan 1:10:27 Now, when you coord- when you write this out, like, how much time is involved in preparation of writing this and then doing all the scouting and then trying to implement this whole...

Edward Norton 1:10:37 It took me a couple years to write it because, um... I haven't even said in, um... I think you have to know yourself. I'm not Bogart. I'm not like Jack Nicholson. The magic they bring is the magic they bring, and the character I put at the middle of this is the detec- the detective that I play has Tourette syndrome, um, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. So he-

Joe Rogan 1:11:00 (laughs)

Edward Norton 1:11:01 ... he can't, um... Like when he hi- i- i- you know, when he meets a blonde at the bar, he's like the opposite of Bogart. He, he tries to light her match and can't stop blowing it out because it doesn't sound right to him. So it's, he's kind of a train wreck.

Joe Rogan 1:11:15 (laughs)

Edward Norton 1:11:15 Like, he's the opposite of (laughs) of a cool detective. Um, and in fact, Bruce Willis plays the cool detective who he works for. So, like, Bruce Willis is Nicholson. Um, but when something bad happens to him and my guy has to, like, step out of the assistant role, you know, he's just, like, his operative because he has a great memory. He has, like, a photographic memory and some really weird ability to, like... Because his brain is, is chaotic and crazy, um, he has certain little gifts that Bruce Willis, like, relies on him for and believes in him. But when, but when he has to sort of figure out what happened to his boss and solve this mystery, like, he kind of has to come out on his own out of his comfort zone and kind of become a detective. And, um, and it, and it, and it's like th- You know, he, he's ticking and twitching and shouting and doing things that make it very difficult for him to move in the world. So that's kind of like... I had that part of it, and I was grafting it into this story of, um, of, of what happened in New York in the '50s. And it took me a long time to write it and get it right. But once I had it right, um, you know, we probably prepped the movie for, like, nine months. We, we, we were, we were actively, like, scouting New York.... you know, and f- and imagining, like, where can we do this and how can we do this? But I live in New York, so I loved it. I'd, like, get on my motorcycle and go up to Harlem and Washington Heights and, uh, and literally, like, cruise around, just cruise around. I know the area really well anyway. But y- uh, sometimes you just have to, like, just... And that's where a bike in New York is really great, like, 'cause you can just sort of float around, float around, float around, mentally mapping, like, where you can do a thing. And, um, and it was, it was pretty fun, actually.

Joe Rogan 1:13:13 That's such a bold move, riding a bike in New York City.

Edward Norton 1:13:15 No, it's not. It's not.

Joe Rogan 1:13:16 It's not?

Edward Norton 1:13:17 LA is, LA is way, way, way more dangerous.

Joe Rogan 1:13:20 How so?

Edward Norton 1:13:20 Because New York, no one's going that fast, right? Um...

Joe Rogan 1:13:24 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 1:13:26 You can be n- I can't explain it. In New York, there's a rationality to the way people are moving, but I'll tell you the number one main thing. New, New York requi- New York driving, it's so stop and start, and it's the things... Nobody has time to be on their phone. And in LA, if I'm on a bike, uh, I would say I regularly look to my right and I look to my left, and both people on either side of me are texting.

Joe Rogan 1:13:55 (sighs)

Edward Norton 1:13:56 Do you ever see- I mean-

Joe Rogan 1:13:57 Yes, all the time.

Edward Norton 1:13:58 All the time. And-

Joe Rogan 1:13:59 When I'm in my truck especially 'cause I can look down.

Edward Norton 1:14:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:14:01 Yeah.

Edward Norton 1:14:01 And you realize, you realize that in this town, 60% of people at any given moment are texting on their phone. And it's just appalling. And it's so dangerous.

Joe Rogan 1:14:14 Yeah.

Edward Norton 1:14:14 And I'll be on... If I'm on a motorcycle in LA, I'll look at people, they're texting for so long, and finally I'll have to, like, hit the horn or something and look at them. I've gotten past, like, you know, anger and literally just looked at people, flipped my thing up and gone like, "Please, like, please get off your phone. Like, you're going to kill somebody and kill yourself." But n- but we can't. We can't break the addiction. People cannot break the addiction. Um, and it, and I, I r- it's not a mor- you, you realize it isn't a character flaw. It's not, it's not like, "What an asshole." It's everybody. It's your mom, it's your sister.

Joe Rogan 1:14:54 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 1:14:54 It's your friend. Everybody is doing it because we're addicted, like-

Joe Rogan 1:14:59 Yeah.

Edward Norton 1:14:59 ... device addicted. But, but when you're on a bike and you realize, like, I am floating in a sea of people who are going to mess up, someone is going to mess up, and they've got airbags and, you know, new modern stuff, and I- you're on this, but, uh, like-

Joe Rogan 1:15:17 You don't have anything.

Edward Norton 1:15:18 Yeah, I don't, i think, I think, I think this is way more dangerous, riding, um, than, than New York.

Joe Rogan 1:15:26 That makes sense when you talk about things like the 405 or the 101-

Edward Norton 1:15:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:15:29 ... when people are flying by and passing and changing lanes, and the, the texting too. It is-

Edward Norton 1:15:34 Yeah, and also the big avenues. People get up, you know-

Joe Rogan 1:15:36 Yeah.

Edward Norton 1:15:36 ... Wilshire Boulevard or whatever.

Joe Rogan 1:15:37 Sure.

Edward Norton 1:15:37 They're looking at a thing and they blow that red light.

Joe Rogan 1:15:39 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 1:15:39 Right?

Joe Rogan 1:15:40 All the time.

Edward Norton 1:15:40 And half the times you hear about or see bad accidents here, um, especially if they involve motorcycles or something, it's like, it w- the, it's not like the person screwed, the b- the, the person on the bike didn't screw up. Someone went through a red light-

Joe Rogan 1:15:53 Right.

Edward Norton 1:15:53 ... and just broadsided them, or they T-boned the thing.

Joe Rogan 1:15:56 Mm-hmm.

Edward Norton 1:15:56 You know, it's, it's just, it's like, do you really wanna make the bet, the huge bet on yourself, uh, where, where what you're riding on is other people's, um, concentration, you know? It's...

Joe Rogan 1:16:09 Were you riding when you were living out here?

Edward Norton 1:16:12 I've never ... I, I, I've always lived in New York.

Joe Rogan 1:16:14 So when you've been here, it's only for n- few months at a time for how many days?

Edward Norton 1:16:17 Yeah. No, we're, I've, I've, I've, I have, I've spent winters out here. Uh, I like to surf and, um, I, I'm, and I'm, by the way, I'm, like, not a, I'm not, like, a pro, experienced, like, veteran motorcycle rider at all. I just enjoy it. And, like, out here, it's fun. You know, like, go up the Angeles Crest Road or something-

Joe Rogan 1:16:39 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Edward Norton 1:16:39 ... pretty like that, you know? It's-

Joe Rogan 1:16:40 I love driving up there.

Edward Norton 1:16:41 Yeah, it's really-

Joe Rogan 1:16:42 Yeah.

Edward Norton 1:16:42 ... it's really, it's