Earning an Oscar nomination for his first ever onscreen performance, Edward Norton made an immediate impression as one of the most committed and versatile actors of his generation. Like most overnight stars, Norton had actually been preparing for his breakthrough role for years, first appearing onstage at the tender age of eight years old, in a production of the musical Annie Get Your Gun. He continued to act while studying History at Yale University and spent several months living in Japan, where he became a fluent speaker of the language. After returning to America and treading the boards off-Broadway, he was cast out of over 2,000 candidates in the role of Altar Boy turned murder suspect Aaron Stampler in Primal Fear. The film was a major critical and commercial hit, and his eye-catching performance earned him his first Oscar nomination for Actor in a Supporting Role. The trophy went to Cuba Gooding Jr. for Jerry Maguire, but Norton was on his way. After playing a lawyer in 1997's The People Vs Larry Flynt, Norton gave an intense and transformative performance in the chilling 1997 crime drama American History X, for which he earned a nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role, which was won that year by Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful. Remarkably, he was never nominated again in the Leading Actor category, although his 1999 performance in Fight Club probably came close. Notable roles in the 00s included starring opposite Antony Hopkins in a poorly regarded remake of Red Dragon, leading Christopher Nolan's twisty 2006 thriller The Illusionist and playing Bruce Banner in the divisive 2008 version of The Incredible Hulk. Through the 2010s he became a regular member of Wes Anderson's informal acting troupe, with appearances in Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs, The French Dispatch and Asteroid City. He also earned another Oscar nomination in the supporting category in 2015 for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), this time losing to J.K. Simmons in Whiplash. In 2022 he memorably channelled Elon Musk as a petulant billionaire in the second Knives Out movie, Glass Onion, and played folk legend Pete Seeger in the 2024 Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. For this role, he received his fourth Oscar nomination, again in the Supporting Actor category.

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