The 1995 audition Edward Norton compared to the Nirvana demos: “It got hyped up”
1996 was a fairly legendary cinematic year that saw the release of many films with interesting legacies, but no one had a better breakthrough than Edward Norton, although he was quite surprised by the scale of it.
An unknown actor at the time, Norton scored major roles in a trio of incredibly well-received films across genres that included the legal thriller Primal Fear, the biographical dramedy The People vs Larry Flynt, and the Woody Allen musical Everyone Says I Love You, and was deemed a standout in each.
Everyone Says I Love You wasn’t necessarily a classic-in-the-making, but its creative use of music made it unique in comparison to other recent Allen efforts, and The People vs Larry Flynt was one of the year’s best-reviewed films, earning a ‘Best Actor’ Academy Award nomination for Woody Harrelson and a ‘Best Director’ shoutout for Miloš Forman.
Norton’s performance was praised as well, but it was nothing in comparison to the rave responses that greeted his turn in Primal Fear, which starred Richard Gere as an attorney who learns that a priest in Chicago has been murdered, with Norton playing the young altar boy accused of the crime. The twisty thriller goes in many unexpected places, featuring an ending so shocking that it helped the film become a blockbuster hit, and while Norton’s dynamic, transformative performance would have been impressive, regardless of who he was, it was even more exciting because it was his first film ever.
His audition had become a minor legend within the industry, given that he had beaten out established actors like Matt Damon, James Van Der Beek, and Pedro Pascal for the part, but he said that he wasn’t sure how so many people got hold of his audition tape.
“People made a big deal of that,” Norton said, “It was sort of like the Nirvana demo tape, my screen tests on it. It went around, and I was like, ‘Why is everybody seeing this? Why am I hearing about people seeing it at, you know, parties in Hollywood and shit like that?’”
The actor said that despite the praise that he got, he hadn’t treated his Primal Fear audition as being any different from what he would normally do, adding, “It got hyped up. I did things I always did for auditions. I didn’t like chit-chat before auditions. I thought it was un-strategic”.
Even if Norton’s strategy was to retain his anonymity, his star status quickly blew up when Primal Fear was released, which, despite being released earlier in the year, became an awards contender, with Norton bagging a nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actor’. His loss to Cuba Gooding Jr in Jerry Maguire is one of the most ridiculous snubs in Oscar history, given that Norton’s performance has aged much better.
It is somewhat ironic to hear that Norton had tried to keep a cool head during his audition, as he would later be known as an actor who was quite demanding and would often try to seize creative control while making films. Although his difficult behavior lead to a brief fallow period in his career, he’s been making a bit of a comeback in the 2020s thanks to his Oscar-nominated turn in A Complete Unknown and his scene-stealing performance in this year’s The Invite.
