EDWARD Norton talks about appearing in The Illusionist and some of the challenges involved in adapting the script from Steven Millhauser’s original short story.

He also discusses some of the film’s magic, its release just months after Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige and forthcoming projects including New York cop drama, Pride & Glory.

Q. What was the attraction of The Illusionist?
Edward Norton: Two friends of mine who wrote the film Rounders had produced Neil Burger’s first, very small indie film. He had come to them with this idea and they were producing it for him, so they brought it to me. Neil’s script at that time was extremely faithful to the short story [Eisenheim the Illusionist].

Maybe I have a predilection for thinking I can improve on the classics or something, but Brian [Koppelman, producer], David [Levien, producer] and I thought that it didn’t quite work and I think we convinced Neil that for the purposes of the film maybe the basic conceit ought to be that it’s sort of a trick within a trick within a trick – that in the end the illusionist is affecting his ultimate illusion in the service of achieving his love.

Neil chewed on that for a while and then he, Brian and David went to work on re-tooling it that way and we all really liked what came back.

But I think, for me, once we had sorted out the basic idea I was struck that there are seven or eight performances in it. As I was reading them I thought it would really be something to pull these off, although it would take some work to do them convincingly. That alone was compelling to me because I don’t really see myself as this guy. I had an idea of him in my head but I don’t look in the mirror and see that guy. So, that was the initial appeal for me.

I suppose we have to mention the film’s UK release after The Prestige. Is that a help or a hindrance?
Edward Norton: We made The Illusionist quite a bit before The Prestige actually and in the States it came out quite a bit before that film. I think here it’s flipped. I’m not quite sure why they held it here for so long. But it doesn’t seem to have hurt either one. The Illusionist did incredibly well in the States and it’s actually still running I think. It opened in August and it’s been running for six months.

I think The Prestige came and did it’s thing and they didn’t seem to interfere with each other. I suppose if I had to choose it would be better to come out first, but I don’t think it’s a big deal.

How much attention did you pay to making sure that the tricks appeared authentic?
Edward Norton: Part of our thinking on that was to be very, very rigorous on only performing illusions that were being performed at the time. And to be as strict as we could about performing them live as opposed to using camera trickery or CGI. The only thing that I didn’t do, or that we didn’t use the actual mechanisms that were available at the time for, were the spirit manifestations which they did in London.

There’s a great book about the rage for spirit manifestations at the turn of the 20th Century. They were apparently really effective and sophisticated but the techniques they used required a very darkened theatre. We obviously couldn’t do that and film it so we had to cheat a little bit. But plasma clouds and ghosts that spoke were all fixtures of 20th Century stage magic.

You’ve talked about getting involved in the script process for this film. Do you feel scarred by past battles over script issues on films like American History X, or did that give you the experience necessary to make suggestions?
Edward Norton: No and that’s not even a particularly apt example because everything that went down that everybody still talks about much too much was an after-the-fact phenomenon. The representation that there was a conflict while we were doing it is totally disingenuous.

David McKenna and I wrote that script, the director didn’t. We had a great time shooting the whole film. It was a fight that Tony [Kaye] got into with the studio later that flowed out over everything. But in no way was that situation of creative conflict while we were doing it. And nor is that kind of involvement something that I do on every film.

I’ve worked on many, many films where someone handed me something and I read it, and I’ve said: “Don’t change a comma, where do we start?” I’ve had those equally.

Do you think that having a theatrical background gives you more confidence to get involved with a script perhaps? To be more collaborative?
Edward Norton: I don’t think it has to do with a theatrical background particularly. And by the way I totally resist the notion that I’m in any way unique as an actor in this regard. I mean there’s many, many great actors who get equally involved in the script process. In fact, I know more who do than don’t quite frankly – actors who direct, actors who produce. It’s hardly a unique phenomenon.

Up until this point, you’ve rarely done period films. But with The Illusionist and the forthcoming The Painted Veil you’ve done two back-to-back. Was that a conscious decision?
Edward Norton: No, and the fact that they fell back to back is purely coincidence, because The Painted Veil is something we’d have been ready to do at any moment in the last seven years. It just happened that it fell together on the heels of another period piece.

I rarely step back and look at the relationship of any of these things to each other. I don’t tend to make decisions about things with regard to how it fits into a larger body. It’s almost exclusively and totally execution dependent with me. I love period films, but I just don’t happen to have had ones laid in front of me that I thought were good, or that resonated with me.

I’ve looked at many of them over the years but I just don’t happen to have been pulled in by them the way I was pulled in by these. I suppose on some level that could have to do with the fact that I don’t – as a broad statement – tend to prioritise work that I feel like on some level has something to say about the experience of people of my generation, or people that I know.

Things that reflect what’s difficult about the times that we’re living in, those films have meant a lot to me over time or films that I would say were engaged in their times, or were somehow a document. That doesn’t mean that they were particularly commercial either. Those are just what I tend to gravitate towards but it’s fun to mix in other experiences too.

What do you have coming up. Will you be directing again in the future?
Edward Norton: I’m working on a couple of things, two that are sort of in a foot race with each other. One of them is something that I would direct and there would be a role for me in, and the other one I would just like to direct. There’s nothing in it for me.

Is Motherless Brooklyn one of them?
Edward Norton: That’s one of them, but I have to finish writing it.

Can you tell us a little about Pride & Glory?
Edward Norton: It’s a contemporary police corruption drama which co-stars Jon Voight and Colin Farrell. I’ve just seen bits of it but I think it’s a very visceral film.

Again, I think it’s interesting, it’s a genre film but I think when you do a genre film I at least apply the standard to it of: “Why do another cop corruption drama?” To me, the answer is if it’s a cop corruption drama that reflects the moment in some ways. I think that Gavin O’Connor, the director, had a very astute sense in terms of what’s going on in America right now, of this whole crucible of truth telling that the country has been going through with things like with Abu Ghraib.

I think Gavin was really interested in the idea of what goes on in that moment when people in our generation realise that they’ve been co-opted into participation in things that are deeply corrupt. How does a person confront that moment where they have to betray the institution that they serve to serve it, ultimately? I think he’s located it within a New York cop drama but I think it’s very much about things that people in our generation are having to face up to about the choices we’re going to have to make. It’s interesting.

Read our review of The Illusionist

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