How Edward Norton was weaponised to get the best out of Matt Damon
The acting game can be a cruel affair, and the most notable actors in Hollywood frequently have to go toe-to-toe with one another in auditions for just one movie role, where, of course, only one of them can come out on top, and one particular instance saw Edward Norton used as a threat.
In the mid-1990s, both Norton and Matt Damon emerged as promising talents in the American film industry, and as Hollywood grabbed hold of their new generation, the world looked on in eagerness. By the time the decade was done, both Norton and Damon had wowed audiences with their respective performances in American History X and Good Will Hunting.
In 1998, the two would come together in Rounders as two friends who play poker in order to pay off a huge and desperate debt, but just the year before, Damon had starred in a film in which the threat of Norton’s talent was utilised in order to get the most out of his performance. The instigator was Francis Ford Coppola.
Over the years, Coppola has used just about every tactic to try to get the best out of his actors. When Damon came to star in his 1997 legal drama The Rainmaker alongside Claire Danes, Jon Voight, Mickey Rourke, Danny DeVito, and Danny Glover, he used a new method that he had learned from his teacher’s book Game Theater by Viola Spolin.
Speaking with Roger Ebert about his methods on The Rainmaker, Coppola explained, “I tried every trick in the book. The stunts we pulled on these people! You don’t get life from actors by smothering them. You lay around opportunities for them to go to themselves.” Coppola went on to detail how he left Italian cheese and cigars lying around on the set of The Godfather in order to help Marlon Brando “feel a certain way”.
The director said that about a week before the shoot of The Rainmaker went ahead, he started “playing Viola’s games” in order to “break the ice” and “teach concentration”. Coppola explained that usually on a shoot, the production will stop for the lighting department when the photographer highlights a problematic glare.
What Coppola did to play his games was to have “an acting department” and “stage little scenarios.” Concerning the Damon-Norton weaponisation, Coppoal explained, “At one point, for example, I told Matt Damon, ‘Gee, Matt – I just got a call from Paramount, and they’re looking at the dailies, and they’re not real happy with your work. Apparently, Ed Norton is available.'”
Damon would then have to play a scene in which he was fired from his job, and although, according to Coppola, he knew the director was making the story surrounding Norton up, it helped him to get “in touch with the feelings” of being fired. That was just one of the tricks that Coppola played to get Damon working his best, and judging from his performance, it’s clear that it worked.
Nobody wants to lose their job, especially to a rival actor, but sometimes the fear of someone better coming in for a role can be the precise motivator that an actor needs to up their game. It might have been cruel for Coppola to lie to Damon, but it certainly kept him on his toes.
