Edward Norton stepped into the spotlight in 1996's PRIMAL FEAR and immediately established himself as a star. For his debut movie role, Norton earned an Oscar® nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and he spent the rest of the decade leading hits such as THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT, AMERICAN HISTORY X and, of course, FIGHT CLUB.
In 2000, Norton made his directorial debut with KEEPING THE FAITH, a rom-com in which he also starred alongside Ben Stiller and Jenna Elfman. Nearly a decade later, he will again pull double duty as the lead and director (and writer) of MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN, a film noir based on Jonathan Lethem's 1999 award-winning novel.
MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN follows Lionel Essrog (Norton), a lonely private detective living with Tourette Syndrome in 1950's New York. After his friend and mentor, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis), is murdered, Lionel ventures to solve the crime, armed only with a few clues and the engine of his obsessive mind. What he uncovers are guarded secrets that hold the fate of New York in the balance.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Norton revealed why he set the drama in the '50s instead of the '90s like the novel. He wanted to explore "the secret history of modern New York, with all of its kind of institutional racism and the devastation of the old city from neighborhoods right up to Penn Station, perpetrated at the hands of an autocratic, almost imperial force, who was intensely antagonistic to everything we think defines American democratic principle. That’s not a history most people are actually familiar with."
At least, not yet. MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN has been in the works since the early days of Norton's career, and on November 1, the film will finally open nationwide. Willem Dafoe, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Alec Baldwin co-star. Be sure to set a reminder to get tickets as soon as they're available on the AMC website.
