Miserable Retail Slave

Xena's Favorite Actors: Edward Norton

by Xena

My next featured actor is also one of my favorites, and completely different in talent and style. With the exception of “The Incredible Hulk”, I pretty much just love the guy. He can do very little wrong. 

1. Fight Club (1998) ~ "The Narrator"

Okay, this one was a give-in, I know. There is nothing hotter than a half-naked Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Jared Leto beating the shit out of each other and planning the end of the world. Thrown in Meatloaf with mammary glands, and the world is just an awesome place. “I am Jack's raging bile duct.”

2. Death To Smoochy (2002) ~ "Sheldon Mopes/Smoochy the Rhino"

He has never been better than opposite Catherine Keener and Robin Williams in a fight for dominance in pre-school television. Add the Irish mafia and a whole lot of dry humor and it is close to being perfect in every way. “When my brothers and I played cowboys and Indians, I was always the Chinese railroad worker.”

3. American History X (1998) ~ "Derek Vinyard"

If this movie didn't slap you in the face and move you to tears, you must be some kind of freaking robot. I honestly hated Edward's character so much in this movie, until he began his long road to redemption. There has never been a movie that hit a painful subject matter more on the head than this. “I'm lucky. I feel lucky because it's wrong, Danny. It's wrong and it was eating me up, it was going to kill me. And I kept asking myself all the time, how did I buy into this shit? It was because I was pissed off, and nothing I ever did ever took that feeling away. I killed two guys, Danny, I killed them. And it didn't make me feel any different. It just got me more lost and I'm tired of being pissed off, Danny. I'm just tired of it.”

4. Primal Fear (1996) ~ "Aaron/Roy"

This was the first movie I ever saw Edward Norton in, and after it I knew that he was going to be one of the great actors of our time. Richard Gere was supposed to be the headliner in this one, but he was so quickly overshadowed by Norton playing such a convincing and manipulative character. It was sheer brilliance. “I got you. You the lawyer. Well, you sure fucked this one up, didn't you, counselor! Looks to me like they're gonna shoot ol' Aaron so full o' poison it's gonna come out his eyes!“

5. The 25th Hour (2002) ~ "Monty Brogan"

I am normally not a huge fan of Spike Lee, but this look at the last day that a man is free before spending 7 years in prison is pretty moving. He plays the role of a drug dealer so convincingly that you honestly don't even feel all that bad for him as he spends his last day of freedom trying to right a few wrongs. 

“No. No, fuck you, Montgomery Brogan. You had it all, and you threw it away, you *dumb* *fuck*!”

-Xena