Edward Norton Talks Fight Club, Adam Sandler, and Seth Rogen!

0:00People forget that Fight Club became such a definitive film and everything, but it was a total financial bomb. Brad had said to me, he kind of pulled me to the side, he said, how do you think this is going to go? And I said, I don't think this is going to go well at all. And he said, me neither, let's get stoned. Sandler's interesting because I thought Uncut Gems was just a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant film. And he was as great as he's ever been in anything. and I remember I was texting with him or something and you know I don't remember if it was the reviews or the Oscars or something came around and he wrote me no love for the Sandman you know Edward Norton uh very cool dude got a little mystery to him which doesn't happen a lot in

0:46Dana Carvey:this business he's uh he came out of the box fast we'll talk all about his career his techniques his philosophy he's very thoughtful has a great sense of humor he's very generous with with people he works with um it was it was fun to talk to him because he he's a really classic great movie actor there's some good stories brad pitt stories adam sandler we kind of broke down a little bit uh a lot of fun and um it pops up in a lot of cool movies we asked about the hulk I told him why I wouldn't play the Hulk Yeah Yeah, the Hulk and his new movie With Olivia Wilde So it's a very interesting Interview with someone Who's just a brilliant actor Who just keeps working and doing cool stuff Look for him in the invite With Penelope Cruz, Seth Rogen Olivia Wilde and Edward Norton So that's in theaters soon I'm definitely going to that one Because he was talking about it And I got very interested yeah here he is yeah it sounds cool edward norton congratulations you're on our podcast awesome yeah everything's coming together for you whose birthday is it uh it's jana's well wait it's let's let's go by hierarchy it's jerry mathers who played the beaver in the 1962 and myself do you share your birthday we don't have to get the the number but with a other well-known person you have five seconds i i think maybe robert redford wow what a good one oh my god i think i got i can't jerry mathers you pen and robert de niro are all in the same like middle i can't remember uh okay i can't remember who's on my day though it kind of makes sense but anyway yeah it is my birthday and they said you don't have to do this with Edward Norton on your birthday.

2:42Dana Carvey:I go, are you fucking kidding me? You were like, what could be better? Pretty much. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Be like a 10 year old all day long? Me open present. I mean, are you a birthday guy? Like, no, nobody is. It's rational after the age of 10. Listen, the audience is wondering who has one on my birthday. I'll tell you quickly. Selena Gomez. Okay. Okay. I'll let the applause die down. And Don Henley. All right, continue I like Don Henley I like Don Henley So I have That's nicely diverse I add nothing to this fucking That is kind of nice Mine's just Jerry Mathers and me Do the math We're in the same tribe All right, that's good I like that So as far as the movie The Invite for a second We can start with that Okay Whoops Whoops I've read some of the reviews they're incredible Hollywood Reporter gave you a love letter did you see that?

3:43Dana Carvey:I didn't okay is it good to hear that phrase love letter? yeah I mean it's kind of weird isn't it like in the time we've all been doing this I mean I remember being in New York in my early 20s and there were people who could close a play you know like Frank Rich in the New York Times, he could open or close a play, and then there was those people like, you know, there was, and I, it's wild. Roger Ebert, maybe? Yeah, Roger Ebert. You could really, you, and there was writers you loved, and there was people, I feel like, it's not to disrespect anybody as a writer or anything, but I just feel like in this like, Rotten Tomatoes world, I'm not as tuned in, I'm just not that tuned in anymore to i'm not as tuned in as i used to be to what an individual kind of review it doesn't really mean anything yeah and and and it's like it's more it's it is sort of more like are we are we are we fresh overall are we rotten you know are we are you rotten like are we i don't know you know it's like how are we how are we um i don't know there's like this different metric now uh in a way.

5:05And maybe it's healthy in some ways, but then you do sort of, sometimes you kind of miss that thing of like, I mean, it was dramatic. You felt like you were - Five stars and it really mattered. Yeah, you felt like you lived, sometimes it was like, you felt like you lived and died on that stuff.

5:19Dana Carvey:Well, if we do stand-up, David and I are at a theater or wherever, then there's a thousand reviews. Just you go online, you see what people thought of the show. Or either laugh or don't. You know, that's different. Like it's right there, you know you bombed. And Rotten Tomatoes is interesting because I think they rough up so many movies, they added an audience meter, tomato meter, where they go, well, the critics hate it, but the crowds liked it. So I think Edward might be in more of the both liked it with his movies. Sometimes. Sometimes. Although people forget that Fight Club became such a definitive film and everything.

6:00but it was a total financial bomb. I mean, when it came out, it didn't do well at all. I mean, I think that movie cost 60 or 70 million bucks to make, and I'm not even sure it got to 40. I don't even know if it got to 40 million at the U.S. box office. It was very, the whole, and I remember they made a very strange decision to premiere that movie at the Venice Film Festival, which didn't feel like a good fit with subtitles and all these things. And it got booed. It got booed. But I had— Booed? Yeah, it got booed. And I had—at the hotel beforehand, Brad had said to me—he kind of pulled me to the side.

6:48He said, how do you think this is going to go? And I said, I don't think this is going to go well at all. And he said, me neither. Let's get stoned. And he had flown in private, so he had a big joint. And we kind of stood in the back of this hotel and I was, you know, I'm like a lightweight and Brad's like a, at the time, you know, so pro and, and we, we, we, we, I remember, but I remember sitting in the back and watching the movie and, and people, people were actively, they were booing, they booed at the end and people left in the middle of it. And at the end of it, Brad turned to me in the dark at the end of it, kind of tearful.

7:25And he said, I think that's the best movie I'm ever going to be in. And it sounds like a story, a funny story. But the thing is that the experience was really, really schizophrenic because there was this feeling. And this is just to the point. Sometimes you have your own feeling about a thing, and it doesn't grab in some of the ways that the industry or the town signals, but then it's got its own— And, you know, and I mean, I mean, think about comedies. Like, I think there's so, there's things that have become, you know, they didn't get well reviewed and maybe they did well or they didn't do well, but they become kind of epic.

8:13They become classics. And I, it's kind of interesting because you can be, I remember that feeling of being disappointed in the short term and then, but then slowly over time you go, oh, this is actually, this is better than, this is better. It's almost better. I would take that because it turns into a cult. It turns into an important thing that hits people. And if it's still being talked about to this day, you might hear it every day. I mean, there's things I've done that if it was bigger and then you don't hear about it, I'm not even on your level. Let's be honest. We'll start with that. But let's say a comedy I hear about to this day, Tommy Boy, it made 30s.

8:49I literally was thinking that while we were talking about this. I mean, that's a classic movie in everybody's comedy pantheon. And I don't think at the time. 32 million? 32.

9:02Dana Carvey:What did Wayne's World make right before that? I can't remember. You're going to say some high number, you prick. I don't know. No, but you're right. As far as Resonance was just like that. But comedians, I don't know about anybody else, but most comedians get their ass kicked doing movies or TV shows. It's just like, as if we're trying to do apocalypse now and we came out with this, they should on Sandler more than any comedian in history for decades. I would text him after they're out of their minds. You're not trying. And so we're used to that. I remember Steve Martin one time going, yeah, the critics hate me, but it's kind of a trap.

9:39Dana Carvey:Cause Burt Reynolds used to say that to reference and no one really knew the critics hated them. You don't even thought of it until they announced it. We're not reading their reviews. But I'm talking to somebody who's done very well for himself. Go ahead. Yeah, and sometimes. No, but Sandler's interesting because I thought Uncut Gems was honestly maybe one of my favorite films in the last 10 years. Just a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant film. And he was as great as he's ever been in anything. And I remember I was texting with him or something. And, you know, I don't remember if it was the reviews or the Oscars or something came around and he wrote me, no love for the Sandman, you know.

10:22And I remember he wrote, no love for the Sandman. And I said, but I remember, you know, and you laugh and you go like, oh, fuck them, you know. But I do remember thinking at the time even, I thought it is funny. It's like sometimes people just don't want to give it up. The Matrix doesn't want to give it up. They're just going to – they want to keep Adam in a box. He's pushing out of it. That's the thing is like he gets very close and they're like, we'll let you get this far.

10:56Dana Carvey:He had that and then he's had Jay Kelly recently where he's kind of knocking at the door a couple of times. I think one more turn. He'll punch through, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Punch Drunk Gloves, to me, that's one of PTA's best. I love it. Yeah, and Adam's so good in that. But I don't know if it's age or just getting a thicker skin or having family in your priority shift or whatever, or if there's been a real cultural shift, there's no question people are consuming things in a different way and they're listening. Like you said, the gatekeepers, I don't think things aren't the same. I mean, there's this, there's anatomization.

11:49There's not as much power in, there's not as much power in, like in the idea of cultural gatekeepers. I feel like there are more ways, there's more ways for all of us anyone who makes anything can kind of get direct to their own audience in ways that i i actually am happy you know i think i'm happy i think it's oh yeah um

12:14Dana Carvey:because we came up with johnny carson or snl or a sitcom and that was it there were three channels so now like shane gillis he really got bumped off of snl he came on our podcast and he released his own special on youtube and he was kind of a little shy i guess maybe i'll play theaters and they just took off the fans so i i do like that about it you know do you read comments edward about yourself do you read are you on social media no not really i mean i i use it i use i i like i'm i'm a real interloper in social media i don't i i i mean you know they it seemed the algorithm seems to know that I like surfing and people falling.

13:01Like they must have, somehow, like somewhere in New York, I think at my desk, I still have like a sticky on it with that Mel Brooks line that, you know,

13:17tragedy is when I cut my little finger, comedy is when you fall in an open sewer and die. That's like one of Mel Brooks's lines. and i um yeah and i uh i i i'm i'm a sucker for for that stuff but i don't i don't know i don't um i i i don't go down that rabbit hole it's like you watch one surfing video and then it goes you love surfing here's a hundred videos you're like yeah why yeah there's a you know the way i would

13:46Dana Carvey:describe it and there's other people like you unintentionally mysterious because you're certainly not fostering a celebrity thing and so it's i using the word loosely of cool i mean i gene hackman would come in crushing a film then he'd go to new max you didn't know what he was doing and i know this i for what i gather with you you're this isn't intentional you're just not hungry for that you are i mean it sounds very self-congratulatory you're just no no i i doing great stuff you know well look i i mean everybody everybody gets shaped by their own inclinations and decisions but then also there's a lot of luck you know there's a lot of um there's a lot that's not in your control too and i i i'm certainly um i've certainly been hugely lucky in the sense that from pretty early on, I, I, I, I was getting to choose, you know, I, I, I had, I had choices about what I wanted to work on and what I didn't.

14:49And, and so I was getting to cut my own path, but then, but then I do think in all honesty, I think, um, there, there are, there are performers, let's not even say actors, there's performers of all types who are just like, we're drawn to them because they're iconic. They're very, they're a star, you know? They're like, and it's kind of like who they are, their characteristics. I mean, we're talking about Sandler, but like, and I'm not even joking, like to me, Sandler's iconic because we just love him. He's got these characteristics that we love and we go to him again and again and again. Not that he doesn't do things like uncut gems, but then there's other, And I think those kinds of people tend to draw attention in a different way.

15:42And then there are people who I think, like, that's not, I don't think that's my value. I don't even think that's my value in a way. Or because I just tend to, I tend to gravitate toward character-driven stuff. And I do, I don't really think it's me. like I don't I don't think people are that interested in commentary on me or following me around or doing that because I don't that's not even the role I serve for them you know what I mean I don't I'm not you're you're not iconic interesting and they don't see that because you're going to put some spin on it or whatever they know at least you'll try hard to bring something yeah which for me I will be honest I I am I it's a it's a happy uh I love getting I love getting to do the work I get to do.

16:32And if there's, you know, if, if there's this or that, that, that I, I don't get to do because I'm not like, you know, I don't, I don't, I'm not the most commercial or that's so, you know, I'll, I'll take it because I think, um, I think some, sometimes what comes with all that, as we all know, is, can be a real burden, you know what I mean and it's like I I mean I have a lot of friends who you know being too much in the limelight has ended up putting them in 12-step you know what I mean like I don't I don't I don't

17:09Dana Carvey:I don't sort of yeah they surround you with their iPhones now it's not autographs or anything I mean not me but you know really famous people and they just start filming you if you're walking around

17:27Dana Carvey:well you did do um the the hulk you know that was like a big tentpole part of a franchise and um yeah what was that like for you that's like i enjoyed it i enjoyed it i did it i i did i mean i loved i did it because i love those comic books i i was you know i was yeah me too nerdy kid who subscribed to, I subscribed to probably like half a dozen of those things. And I loved when they, it was like, but when you were too little to get porn magazine, you know, like Marvel, people forget like comic books showed up in a brown envelope. You know what I mean? It was a little bit, it was a little bit illicit, you know, you got the brown envelope and you got the little plastic sleeve and, you know.

18:12I couldn't read enough comic books. I loved it. superman's back there i'm such an actor if i was in the hulk i would be holding production because i'm telling the director i should be red because i'm mad and not green and then we'd go back and forth and then they we'd land on green but i would waste everyone's time because i'm overthinking it you were like purple pants really i know who's wearing purple pants it didn't matter what bill bixby was wearing that's what's really funny too in the comics but also in the great bill bixby you know in the the lou ferrigno show we grew up on yeah it's like whatever bill bixby was wearing you know should but the pants became purple why oh i didn't even think of that why you know and that was from the comic book too but why were why why no matter what bill bixby was wearing was lou ferrigno and purple pants you know who should have noticed that joker friend or something fucking script supervisor.

19:09There's so many people that drop the ball on that. Of course, my mother's favorite comment that she loved to make whenever we watched The Hulk with Lou Fregno was she would always say, why do his pants only rip up to there? Oh, geez. She would be like,

19:26Dana Carvey:very observant and rather interesting. Let his wiener get bigger. Yeah, no. It was funny how his pants shredded up to his shirt. Because Bill Benson would wear like from Best Buy and then he would suddenly I never even connected I was so into the Hulk 2 and I was so blinded by the fun of it I didn't really look at that I'm just excited that Bill Bixby was mentioned on our podcast I know he's not he's not talked about a lot that's like Ross Martin yeah oh from Wild West Gordon yeah I still love that do you remember Courtship of Eddie's father of course yeah yeah yeah i mean that was what were you like three months old when you walked yeah but yeah but it was but it but it had that and stuff yeah go ahead it's funny how there's things that from when you were really young they you kind of remember the song i remember the song too there's certain things that had a um i don't know they had a vibe they had a vibe that you knew maybe you were a little too young for it but there was something about it that seemed sweet like or happy yeah every one of those old shows has a theme song that i hear and i like partridge family there's so many where they're just good they have good memories right away and there's some potion where they put together these jingle songs cheers and you just love them and then the whole your whole life great song it's funny they don't i don't think they do it that much on those shows anymore or any shows but oh we grew up during such an innocent time and you think of those shows and they were, you know, maybe they weren't politically correct or whatever, but I Dream of Jeannie and, you know, Wild Wild West.

21:08Dana Carvey:Go ahead. No, there's so much, you know, there's so much, so much, you know, chatter and debate right now about all the inevitable, you know, all the corporatism and the compression of, you know, is this studio going to buy that studio and all the mergers? And I agree that on balance, you know, just more diverse places to get stuff done is probably better on the whole. But I think, and I think, you know, I'm not one of the ones who's sort of down on, to me, streaming and this whole idea of all these platforms. It's hard to argue that it's created more opportunity for more people to make more different kinds of stuff than ever when we were coming up.

22:00I mean, and I think, and I think it's on balance, you know, it's so much that in a weird way, I feel at times I'm like, I just can't keep up with, I just can't keep up with what's going on. I can't, people are always referencing me seeing this and that. I'm like, where, where do you find the time? This show, that show, this movie. It's so much. It's so much. But I will say, and I know that there was a much narrower bandwidth of types of things when we were growing up. But at the same time, it was really interesting. There was basically the three networks and there was what was coming out in the theater.

22:36And I do have this kind of memory that you kind of knew everything. You knew everything that was available. Like you knew.

22:46Dana Carvey:Everyone did. Yeah, you kind of knew. What night a show was on. Yeah. You knew what was coming out. Thursday night TV. Star Wars. Indiana Jones is coming out this summer. You'll know that. Yeah. Now it's a fucking blur. Yeah, it's very, very, very, very psychologically challenging to keep up with how much stuff gets made. And the whole idea of like, I don't know, I'm sure it cuts both ways because it's all the things we were talking about. But I think people with unique, cool voices and ideas, they can almost get out there and, you know, it's easier than ever to make your own stuff. It's easier than ever to get your own stuff out there and distribute it.

23:28And you can have—and there's so much that's cool about that. And I think you do see a lot of people figuring out how to, like, find an audience. You don't have to go through the gatekeepers to get it.

23:40Dana Carvey:The current number one movie as this podcast is being made is a young man. I think he's 19 or 20. Backrooms. Backrooms did some AI, and he's out doing these big corporate films. I'm not against them, but it's just interesting to observe that. So there's never, and it's going to accelerate. Within 36 months, I'll be able to go, Wayne's World 3, kind of done as Alfred Hitchcock would do it. Boom. And then in two seconds, an AI right now, I just heard this stat the other day can read a hundred thousand page document in two seconds and have photographic memory of it. So we're right at the cusp, but you know, but we still, I find myself not worrying.

24:22I mean, doing, doing the invite, um, was actually a really good, like really strong affirmation of this, the, the way that Olivia Wilde made the movie, um, and the amount of, yeah, she, she, she, terrific actress and and she directed she directed this new comedy that we made it's um it's me and seth rogan and olivia and and penelope cruz and uh and olivia she did she i mean i've been doing movies for 30 years she i have never never done what she did which is it was it was a single set it's one apartment two couples in one apartment for one evening and um and she She shot it in page order. So we got to make it in the exact order of the scenes.

25:15And it had this really cool effect, which was what you were always building on what had actually come right before. And so if a while that and she was encouraging so much improvisation and so much. it was almost like going back to you know acting classes when you were in college she was having us write our backstories and and know a lot and and she wanted us to kind of invent our characters bring them in um wow and as and as a result as we were doing it she was what really wide open to the idea that the ending might end up very different than anything that had been on the page and it did the ending you're building toward it and it's changing as you go yes and And it was changing as we went.

26:03And it was a very nervy but very cool feeling. Seth is one of the great improvisers I've ever worked with. He's phenomenal. Olivia and I had kind of a riff that we were building on. Penelope brought in all this great stuff from Esther Perel and from other stuff she was interested in. And, and, but I guess my point of this was that it, it was the ultimate, it was the ultimate rebuttal to the idea that, you know, AI is just going to like print and punch out everything because the film, which Olivia just did a completely phenomenal job with, like it's, I saw it at Sundance with Seth and we kind of, we were with our wives, we turned to each other and we were like, she, that's like a classic.

26:55She made like a classic, like Mike Nichols kind of vintage comedy. And the thing is, it didn't even end up like what we thought it was when we started out because of how alive and on the feet and improvisational it was. And I don't, I mean, let alone AI, I don't even think we had good, you know, Will Rashida, Will McCormick and Rashida Jones were, you know, with the six of us were at a table working on this thing. very fluidly evolving it in rehearsal, evolving it. But even from that, it changed on a daily basis as we carried it forward. And it was like, that's the kind of thing that makes me think like, you're never, you know, AI is never gonna, I just can't imagine like that kind of a process getting supplanted by something.

27:52because I think there's just things about people bouncing things off of each other that's part of it. And the things you wouldn't think of because you're just in your own mind thinking out of the box that wouldn't make sense.

28:05Dana Carvey:Sounds like Olivia is very, very smart. Yeah. She is really smart. She's got four brilliant actors and you're not trying to control them. I mean, it's just like, go, go, go. Some play, you know, people at home don't realize some, one thing is some directors, writers lock to the script. you cannot go outside these lines and that's okay too but i've never done one where people might not even know when they see a movie you shoot it completely out of order and i think when i tell people that casually they go wait you don't do it the way the movie is they know you start at the end you might have your final crying scene the first day and you don't even know how you got there really because it will change a little bit and i've never had that gift of going straight through i haven't even heard of it really but if you have one set i guess you can it it was great and um there's a there's a we were trying to figure out seth and olivia became it's basically about an unhappy couple meeting a happy couple on over cocktails and everything that this collision produces and it's it's it's it's kind of hysterically funny but it does get down into the real shit at the end and and in the beginning i think when we embarked on it the ending was a lot lighter.