Playing A Neo-Nazi Hard For Actor Edward Norton

Playing a rabid American neo-Nazi in Tony Kaye and David McKenna's "American History X" wasn't the easiest stretch for Edward Norton, the much-praised 29-year-old actor who earned an Oscar nomination last year for his film debut, "Primal Fear."

"All of us felt uncomfortable going there," said Norton, speaking by phone from Los Angeles, where he's working on David Fincher's new movie, "Fight Club."

"It's the kind of role where you have to call on your observational powers, to study other people and their experiences, to be a translator, really. I don't relate on any level to being consumed by that much anger."

He responded to McKenna's script because it wasn't simply reportage.

"There's an unequivocal moral point to the film: you will not escape the consequences," he said. "You don't really see too many straight tragedies anymore, but when you look at the landscape of our lives, this is happening everywhere.

"It's not an aberration anymore. There's a dark dynamic in some parts of our society that's creating these kinds of situations. It seemed like something worth exploring."

Norton feels vindicated by the early, mostly positive reviews of the film - which opened yesterday in New York and arrives tomorrow in Seattle - and by Amnesty International's decision to use it as an educational tool, as "the centerpiece" in their hate-crimes discussions.

In order to play the racist and extremely physical Derek, Norton felt he had to put on 30 to 35 pounds of muscle.

"I thought it was important to be larger than life in every way," he said. "I thought the film would make a stronger statement if he was physically intimidating.

"It took about two months. You eat like a horse and lift weights until you're bored. It's actually quite exhausting. I liked the fitness aspect of it, but it is not my natural size. As soon as I was finished, I stopped doing the weights, and it was like letting the air out of a balloon."

The film is divided into black-and-white segments, which reflect the hero-worshipping memories of Derek's younger brother (Edward Furlong), and color sequences that deal with Derek's life as a humbled ex-convict.

"That was a built-in device in the script, and Tony ran with it," said Norton. "That was the way his brother saw Derek, as opposed to the tragic human reality of him in the present tense."

William Russ plays their father, whose casual comments against affirmative action sound a lot like California Gov. Pete Wilson's speeches endorsing Prop. 209. This was entirely intentional.

"It was David's idea," said Norton. "You could almost trap people with that kind of speech because there was a certain sense to it. They're so eager to haul out dehumanizing statistics. This kind of rhetoric, which creates a sense of otherness about people, can be translated into violence."

Norton doubts that he would have been attracted to the script if it had been similar to "Romper Stomper," an even rougher 1992 Australian movie about skinheads in Melbourne.

"That was an interesting film in an anthropological sense," he said. "It was more about the dynamic between the gang members. It was much more about the milieu, without making a larger dramatic point."

The final tone of "American History X" came about through a process of rewriting and editing in which Norton was closely involved. Just lately it's led to name-calling between him and Kaye, who claims that New Line Cinema prevented him from delivering a final cut.

"The director overstated much of that," said Norton. "I think he knows in his heart of hearts that this is the film we wanted to make. In defense of the studio, he had a beef with them that was primarily about not getting enough time to finish it. But they gave him a year and a half of post-production.

"We have let that go now. It will all disappear once the film gets out there."

Norton has a degree in history from Yale, but he's been "acting since I was a kid. I got serious about it sometime after college." Raised in Columbia, Md., he lived in Seattle several years ago, near the Arboretum.

Just lately he's been going from one project to the next with few intermissions. He couldn't resist doing "Rounders" with Matt Damon, "because I really loved the script, and we were shooting it less than a month after I read it."

After finishing his role opposite Brad Pitt in Fincher's film, which will be released next summer, he plans to take a rest. But he'll be thinking about his next picture, "Keeping the Faith," which he will write and direct for Columbia Pictures.

"I've been working on `Fight Club' for over six months, and I'm looking forward to taking a break. I find I'm not one who can dash from one role to the next. I need to recharge my own batteries if I'm trying to create a distinct character."