HEIGHT..185 cms

WEIGHT..70 kgs

DATE OF BIRTH..August 18, 1969

PLACE OF BIRTH..Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

EDUCATION..Columbia School for Theatrical Arts in Columbia, Maryland;  Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Maryland (1987)

TERTIARY EDUCATION..Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut; majored in history (BA, 1991)

OTHER SCHOOL ACTIVITIES..Basket, acting. At Yale, which is known for its excellent undergrad drama program as well as the prestigious graduate school, Norton rounded out his studies with lauded performances in numerous plays. He performed in such campus plays as Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Allen's Don't Drink the Water. He also did a student film.  "A parody of old Bogart and noir movies, which I've gotten the rights to and buried. It was fun. We showed it in Davies Auditorium and it was kind of a cult hit around school for two years "

OCCUPATION..Actor, writer, director, producer

AGENT..Brian Swardstrom, Endeavor Talent Agency

GRANDFATHER..James Rouse, former real-estate developer,  born 1914, died April 1996; with wife Patricia Rouse (née Traugott), co-founded the Enterprise Foundation

FATHER..Edward Norton Sr., attorney; vice president for law and public policy at the National Trust for Historic Preservation

MOTHER..Robin Norton (née Rouse), former Enterprise Foundation executive, English teacher; died March 6, 1997

SIBLINGS..James and Molly, both younger

CURRENTLY LIVES..In an apartment in Manhattan, New York. For now, he's been living in a small Los Angeles ranch house

HOBBIES..Reading, playing the guitar  "I think music is the great relaxer in a way", photographing, running, seeing films, writing, rally racing

MUSIC..Radiohead, Hole, Tom Waits, Elliott Smith, Buena Vista Social Club jazz artists, Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M.

BOOKS..Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad, J.D. Salinger, Tom Wolfe

PETS..Maggie, a stray tabby cat. "I came home one day, and the cat just walked into the house," Mr. Norton explains. "It was all flea-ridden and hungry, so I cooked it a hot-dog in the microwave, took it to a vet, and it's never left"

FRIENDS..Kevin Spacey, Drew Barrymore, Stuart Blumberg, Courtney Love, Salma Hayek, Matt Damon, Woody Harrelson, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Warren Beatty, Sean Penn, Marlon Brando 

FIRST JOB..Following graduation, he worked  in Osaka, Japan, consulting for his grandfather's company, Enterprise Foundation,  which works to create decent, affordable housing for low-income families.
On his return to New York, it took less than two years of waitering before the young thespian to capture the eye of Edward Albee, one of the most celebrated playwrights of the 20th century. Albee was working with the Signature Theater Company on a new production of Fragments. One audition and Norton landed the role, as well as a slot in Signature's repertory company.  He currently serves on its board of directors

CLAIM TO FAME..Maniacal murderer Aaron Stampler in Primal Fear 

FACTOIDS
He started out at Yale studying astronomy, but quickly discovered that physics was "a hurdle too difficult to vault". So he majored in history

He speaks Japanese fluently

Mr. Norton joins The Enterprise Foundation Board of Trustees. 

He once shared an apartment in New York with friend Drew Barrymore

He played guitar with Hole in two gigs in Los Angeles, in December 1997

Before Primal Fear, Mr Norton auditioned for roles in With Honors, Hackers, and Up Close & Personal, but wasn't offered any parts

He gained 30 pounds of muscle for his role as a violent white supremacist in American History X and  lost 17 pounds for the part of the anesthetized and insomniac narrator of Fight Club

Norton co-wrote a screenplay with a college friend, a "Naked Gun type of spoof." He says:  "It never got made and never will, if I have anything to do with it"

Edward Norton turned down the opportunity to star in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line. Norton was asked to play the lead role in the film but chose to pull out of the project, because his mother had died two months earlier

Norton hosted a screening of Rounders at the Senator Theatre to benefit the Howard Hospital Foundation and the Norton-Rouse Family Fund. The fund was established by his family to support the work of the physicians and staff of the Johns Hopkins hospitals who cared for their relatives in recent years. "We've done this every time I've had a film," Norton said referring to screenings of Primal Fear and Everyone Says I Love You that were held to benefit the Enterprise Foundation and the Johns Hopkins Neurosurgical Oncology Center, respectively

In July 1998, after New Yorker jibe in a review of a documentary about Courtney Love, Norton sent the magazine a frameable letter. Norton's missive was in response to "Endless Love," a piece by Daphne Merkin centering on Nick Broomfield's controversial documentary Kurt & Courtney. The film, filled with speculation that Love's husband Kurt Cobain was a murder victim rather than a suicide, features a litany of Love-haters anxious to air their grievances. The magazine's coverage of Broomfield's film—along with Merkin's thoughtful contributions—didn't sit well with Norton. "If Nick Broomfield never found anyone with affection for Courtney Love, as Daphne Merkin suggests, it's only because he conspicuously avoided the countless friends, colleagues, and fans who appreciate her talent and admire her as a person," Norton writes. "But then, why would Broomfield have opened up his film to those of us who work with Courtney and are close to her when there were so many bitter left-behinds and desperate attention-seekers eager to validate his attack on her character?" Norton compares Broomfield's documentary to a classic witch-hunt: "Inquisitors in every age, scared of forceful women, have used all kinds of half-baked testimony to whip up chants of 'Burn the witch!'" The actor accused Merkin of "simply capitalizing on the prurience of Broomfield's tabloid trash by repeating it. Her only original contribution is her conclusion that Courtney was of more value as an icon of pain and self-destruction than she is as a complex, evolving, and healthy human being—a conclusion that is sexist, intellectually shallow, and spiritually bankrupt. In the end, Courtney's achievements will speak louder than any of her critics."

QUOTES
"Acting? It's a longstanding compulsion I've had since I was about five or six years old. I can literally identify the moment it struck me. I went to see a play [If I Were a Princess] in which a babysitter of mine [Betsy True, who later acted on Broadway] was performing. I was completely shell-shocked by the magic of this little community-theater play; it just riveted me."

"I don't smoke and I don't want to smoke. I am not a fan of gratuitous smoking in films."

"Life, like poker has an element of risk. It shouldn't be avoided. It should be faced."

"If I ever have to stop taking the subway, I'm gonna have a heart attack."

"Fame is very corrosive and you have to guard very strictly against it."

"I've never felt any particular encroachment of the 'celebrity' stuff into my life."

"I'm an actor and, each time out, I'm trying to convince the audience that I'm this character. Every little thing that people know about you as a person impedes your ability to achieve that kind of terrific suspension of disbelief that happens when an audience goes with an actor and character [he's] playing." 

"The more you can create that magic bubble, that suspension of disbelief, for a while, the better."

"It's a nice position to be in; I'm lucky. At the same time, all the excitement of that has been put into stark perspective ... In some ways, the highs of it have been blunted, which in a way, is a gift." 

"First of all, you never make all things for all people and can't always pander to the broadest denominator. I keep an eye toward doing the themes that interest me. Do they move me? Interest me? Make me think? When I run across something that is provocative in an unsettling way, it appeals to me."