EDWARD Norton discusses why The Painted Veil has become something of a labour of love for him as an actor and producer, and some of the difficulties in getting it made.

You have stuck with The Painted Veil for over seven years. Does that mean you’ve always had great faith in the material?
Edward Norton: The longer I’ve worked in films the more I realise as an actor you tend to get handed things when things are pretty much ready to crack. Sometimes you don’t even know how long things have been incubating.

But it’s more normal than people often say for things to go through a lot of germination. This one was particularly long, but it was for all the reasons you might imagine. We spent a good bit of time in the beginning just developing the script and finding the financing. Even when Naomi [Watts] was interested in doing it, we had a hard time finding a slot in which she and I and any director we were interested in weren’t working. It takes time to have the pieces click into place.

Did the script change much during that time?
Edward Norton: I think the script went through three major evolutions. Ron Nyswaner wrote it and wrote an excellent and very excellent adaptation, that very directly reflected the book. But he and the original producer, Sara Colleton, had a very difficult time finding support for that because I think that while the book is brilliant, as a story it’s extremely claustrophobic. Really, if you were just to film a rendition of the book you could film it in Shepperton. There was really no need to go to China.

The second big phase was my contribution to it on script level. I came in and said to Ron that part of what needs to happen is it has to be inspired by the themes but the scope of it has to be expanded. Both emotionally and even in terms of its view of China. There was really no point in going otherwise. So Ron and I worked for about a year along those general lines, maybe a year and a half. When John [Curran] came on he brought an enormous amount of new specificity and new inspiration to it and – more than Ron and I ever had really – anchored it in the specific history of the mid 20s in China, what with the May Martyrs revolution and the enormous wave of anti-foreign resentment that swept the country.

It was a really brilliant new take or additional deepening of the script. I think in addition to creating an even more dramatic context for the characters it opened up this whole second level to the metaphor of the film in a way, because it became much more about western people mucking around in other peoples’ countries, telling them how to fix them and wondering why they’re not being thanked.

That had been unconsciously present but I think John brought that view into it. It never stops, the script evolved even as we were shooting the film, but those were the three big chunks.

You’re playing an Englishman in the film and have a very convinving accent. How do you think American audiences will take to it and the more reserved emotions you display?
Edward Norton: There’s a lot of Anglophiles in the United States, we love our Merchant Ivory. I think like anything else it’s about immersing yourself in some sense of a time, a place and a culture in a society. A great window in on all of it is Maugham himself. If you read Somerset Maugham you get a great window in on the psychology of that class in that time.

Not just in The Painted Veil but in Of Human Bondage and a lot of those books. As for the reaction in the United States, it’s produced a very emotional reaction in people. It’s been very interesting to hear older couples talk about it. We had one screening out at UCLA at a senior film screening series and that was a really interesting experience for me.

It’s not that I’ve never made a film that anyone over 65 liked, but there was something much more profound in the questions we were taking. People were coming up to us afterwards, people who had been married 40 years, saying how deeply they related to the dynamics of this couple. The forgiveness element of it seemed to touch a chord with a lot of people.

Walter [Norton’s character] is restrained but he reminds me in some ways of people I know, even people in my family. I think there are Walters, there are uptight people off the island of Britain.

Have you had any feedback from Maugham’s family?
Edward Norton: We got a really nice letter from Maugham’s grandchildren, saying that this was their favourite of the films that had been made of this book. That was gratifying because we had taken some liberties with it, but they seemed to feel that the spirit of it was very much intact.

Are you a fan of the romantic genre?
Edward Norton: I certainly am of films like Out of Africa or the David Lean films, sure. I tend to find something more meaningful in films that I think are real, that have some sort of universal quotient to them or that are really a study of the eternal dynamics between men and women.

I think the reason Out of Africa holds up as a ‘romantic film’ is that it’s really about loss. It’s not about romantic consummation, it’s about a woman confronted with the fact that she can’t hold on to things, not possessions or property or even this man.

The dynamics between those characters are ones that I think people can still relate to. So, you get the romance of period and place, and the exoticism of it but I think there’s something in it that I think people can recognise themselves in. And I like that – it’s what I tend to respond to.

I don’t tend to respond to the people who meet through a wedding planner, or whose dogs get their leashes tangled. Those things haven’t happened to me yet, so I don’t.

Were there any problems with shooting in China?
Edward Norton: We had to go to China and John and I were adamant that there was no other alternative. As it turns out, that’s good on a financial level because you can stretch the money in China. We made the film for just over $20 million, which is quite modest these days.

In the main, I would say that the trade offs and difficulties from working in China were far outweighed by the opportunity of getting down into that landscape and filming where no Chinese films had even filmed. It was a unique opportunity and it was absolutely worth it.

Ironically, the biggest difficulties that we had were not with the logistics of working in China. The Chinese crews are incredible, the film industry there is very well developed and these people will work so passionately. The work ethic is phenomenal. We had nothing but great things to say about our Chinese colleagues in making the film.

It was more with the vicissitudes of working with the Chinese government and the film bureau having approval rights that amazingly had been granted by Warner Bros. in what I believe was a pretty singular kind of an agreement to give a foreign government substantial approval over a film. Those came to a head in some very unpleasant ways. But I think it’s a total testament to John Curran and his courage, especially at this early stage in his career, that he dug his heels in absolutely resolutely and refused to let those dynamics compromise the film. He won those debates, so that we didn’t suffer this terrible incursion into the integrity of the film.

Was there ever a point you regretted taking on so much on the film as both actor and producer?
Edward Norton: No, as I was saying, producing a film like this goes through many, many phases. Some of it’s terrific and some of it’s a true headache. Working with Ron Nyswaner on the script for a couple of years was great. Finding financing, that’s a pain in the ass.

But then working with John and Naomi and supporting someone like John, who has a very specific vision and whose standards are very high, that’s fun.

Being a producer in a creative sense and really working with someone like John to sort out how we’re going to get what we need to realise what he’s got in his head is fun, but then fighting with Warner Bros. over whether they’re going to send their lawyers in to enforce Chinese censorship cuts is a headache. But you do it because that’s the only way it’s going to get done.

Diana Rigg a fantasy figure and yet here she’s in a Mother Superior’s habit? Care to discuss?
Edward Norton: Who knows what was under it! She was fantastic. I saw Diana Rigg in Medea on Broadway, which was really one of the great things I’ve seen on stage. And, of course, she was Emma Peel, and James Bond’s slaughtered wife. I knew them all.

But she was fantastic. John had the idea of casting her very early on, and I kind of went: “Yeah, good luck.” But then he called up to say she was going to do it. It couldn’t have been easier. I love her performance in this film, it’s so undervalued. She’s so watchful, you learn more about Kitty [Naomi Watts] watching Diana Rigg react to her than I think through any line in the film. I think she’s really terrific.

Would this have been made without you and Naomi as producers?
Edward Norton: I suppose not. They were certainly having a hard time and it was nowhere until we picked it up. The script definitely drew a lot of people; a lot of people looked at it over time, so it might have landed but I think we certainly helped.

Read our review of The Painted Veil

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