Fresh on the heels of his role as Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk, Edward Norton returns to the big screen in Gavin O'Connor's Pride and Glory, starring with Colin Farrell as a New York cop from a family of law enforcers that gets entangled in a web of corruption. Although Norton is currently busy with Pride and Glory, not too long ago at the Toronto Film Festival we were on hand at the official press conference for his upcoming project Leaves of Grass, with actor/writer/director Tim Blake Nelson.

And the funny thing is... Leaves of Grass is a different type of green altogether, as Norton takes on the dual role of a twin who returns to his small town home only to find his pot growing brother caught up in a scheme to take down the local drug kingpin.

Here's a look at what went down when we ducked into Norton's Toronto press conference back in September.

Shooting in Shreveport [for Leaves of Grass], is that a first for you guys?

EDWARD NORTON: It’s a first for me. The story takes place in rural Oklahoma, so it’s the place that’s closest, very similar in topography and that actually has good film support. So this is not strictly a pursuit of Louisiana tax credit. It’s actually close to where the story actually takes place.

Were you involved with the screenplay as well?

NORTON: No. Tim [Blake Nelson] wrote it and gave it to me about February or March of last year, and I was so impressed with it. I thought it was both such a terrific script in its own right, but also a very unique challenge as an actor. So, Tim had just written it. He didn’t have any plans with it, so...

"Time" said that you were working together on this.

NORTON: My producing partner and I offered to produce it for Tim...

What is your job in the movie?

NORTON: Well, first, we found the money. [laughs] We brought it to Avi [Lerner] and Boaz [Davidson], who ultimately partnered with The Langley Company on it. And we’re producing it on the ground in Shreveport.

I was wondering, as an actor when you’re faced with playing two identical twins, but completely different characters, do you have to look at them as two completely different persons? I mean, how, as an actor, do you prepare to face this kind of challenge? And would you ever be seen digitally together in some scenes?

NORTON: They’re in scenes together, yeah. I don’t know. I’m in the middle of that right now. It’s tough to comment too much. But, yeah, I think that’s the fun of it, they’re very, very distinct individuals. So it is not -although the more I look into identical twins, it’s very interesting the degree to which most identical twins will tell you that they really feel that they have an enormous amount of commonality. So, what Tim has written is a really interesting paradox, because there are people who, despite having gone in very different directions and become very different sorts of people, they are also very much the same. So, it’s a rich challenge.

This could be two aspects of one personality, in a way?

NORTON: I guess. Well, they’re very different people, but yeah, I think that life shapes people in really interesting, different ways and these two characters have definitely become shaped, themselves, into very different versions of what they might have each been.

Looking back in time to when you did Primal Fear, how would you recall today the process that you went through?

NORTON: In Primal Fear?

Yeah.

NORTON: That’s a pretty deep vault in the past. Well, that was a very different sort of a thing because it’s not someone who is authentically two different - it’s all that whole thing is someone conning other people, so that’s a very different sort of a trick, I think.

Would you say that movie made you what you are today?

NORTON: In what respect?

Any opportunities, I mean.

NORTON: Well, yeah, I mean it was certainly an incredible opportunity. I think that it - yeah, I mean, obviously it changed my career opportunities in some ways. But in other ways it’s... In that period of time I sort of did a series of films. I did a film with Woody Allen, and I did the Larry Flynt film before Primal Fear came out. So, a lot of things had started happening in that moment. But, yeah, Primal Fear was an amazing opportunity. It was a very, very rare opportunity for someone at my age at that time.

And having a nomination at that time for one of these kind of characters, do you think there might be a possibility for that? You know, having two kind of personalities in the same movie?

NORTON: I don¹t ever speculate on things like that. I think those things are dictated these days by so many more things than just people’s response to it. I think there is an enormous amount of money involved in all of that, and it’s not something I really wonder about.

Edward, how did you feel when you got the script, and is it true that it was written specifically for you? How did that make you feel that someone thought so highly of you?

NORTON: Well, Tim and I had met a couple of times and I had read other things that he had written that were wonderful. Tim’s a great writer... I had seen The Grey Zone, and that was a terrifically made and directed film. And then I read another terrific script of Tim’s that he had sent me that I wasn’t really free to get involved with, but I just thought was a wonderful piece of writing. So, I wasn’t surprised that it was a really good piece of writing. But, actually, when he gave it to me, I was really not in the mood to - I was really busy.

I was really overloaded with things and I was sort of determining for myself that I was going to finish a script that I was writing. And I think when Tim gave it to me I said, 'I love reading your stuff. I’m going to tell you I’m really, really, really not looking to do a film right now. I’m not looking for a movie as an actor, and I definitely don’t want to produce anything else right now,' because I think I was doing Painted Veil and it was really breaking my back, like, the whole process of finishing up Painted Veil took a lot of effort. And I said, 'The last thing I want to do is go scrape around for more money to make another film.' And I actually avoided reading it for awhile.

I was visiting my grandmother and she was having a nap. So, I was like, ‘All right, I’ve got to call Tim Nelson back. I’ve got to read this script finally.’ And I was really kind of resenting it, actually. I was like, ‘Why did I agree to read this? I don’t want to read this right now.’ And then I went and I sat down and I read it. And I literally - when I finished it I was like, ‘Goddamn it!’ It was one of those sensations where you just go, ‘All right. I guess I’m doing this,’ you know, because it was just too good. And Tim had said, 'I hear you.' He said something like, ‘I’m going to presume to say that when you read it you’re going to want to do it.' I was like, ‘Yeah, okay, okay, okay.’

What every writer hopes for.

NORTON: Yeah. And then I read it and, literally, I remember, I sort of threw it down on the bed, and I was like, ‘Ah... I’m going to be spending some time on this one.’ [laughs] And I called him and I was like, ‘All right. You’re right. It’s great.’

What was it about it?

NORTON: You know, I read a lot of things and a lot of things have promise, or you think, ‘Oh, this could be great if you could find the fanatic heart of it,’ or, ‘this could be great, but that ending is really horrible.’ And I’ve only had a couple of times in my whole career that I’ve read something and really sort of put it down and said, 'I would like to shoot that exactly as it is. I would like to make that exactly as it is without changing anything, without changing a comma or a line or anything like that.' It just felt very complete. So, when I encounter things like that, I don’t take it for granted. It’s difficult.

When you read this script, were you looking for a film that would be a more thinking kind of movie as opposed to the big action movie you were coming out of? Do you look for contrast in cases like this?

NORTON: Yeah, sure. I think mostly I just look for fresh experiences. Making movies is a lot of work, and especially if you really take on the full job of producing a movie and all that that entails. It’s a couple of years of work. So, I don’t do it lightly, and generally I do it only if I feel that it’s going to be a set of experiences that I’m going to learn something from and that are different from other experiences that I’ve had as an actor, or that I’m going to get to study things that are new.

And, as Tim said, my partners and I started producing, it’s a lot of work and we really set our goal of doing it specifically to kind of shepherd things that I guess, for want of a better phrase, what we thought were really auteur films, films that were made by peers of ours, filmmakers, writers who we really believe in or who we feel have a really authentic voice of their own. I mean, I’ve done twenty-odd films and produced a lot of them and directed some, and you learn over time what in fact a good producer does for a director or what a director who really has something unique and authentic that they’re trying to say, a personal vision, what they need, what kind of support they need.

So, when we set out to do it, we said, 'Let¹s try to provide that.' You know, whether it’s to David Jacobson doing Down in the Valley, or John Curran doing The Painted Veil, or Ron Nyswaner, who wrote The Painted Veil was a writer. I had really liked his work over the years. So, that’s what makes it worth the effort to me is if, for myself, if I can have an experience that’s different from other films I’ve worked on. But also, specifically, it’s a gratifying experience to kind of create the right kind of production support for a filmmaker who really has a specific vision and who maybe that vision is not immediately reducible to a certain kind of commercial sensibility.

So, it’s almost like we kind of wanted to be champions of a certain kind of taste, in a way. All of us, my two partners and I, really appreciate Tim’s talent and taste, and so we really wanted to help him get this done. The fact that I also get to act in it is really fun. You know, it all makes it a lot of fun. It’s been a lot of fun.

What was the attraction?

NORTON: Pride and Glory?

Yeah, because you said you don’t get a lot of scripts that really...

NORTON: Yeah, Pride and Glory was a long... I talked to Gavin O’Connor about Pride and Glory for a number of years. He came to me with it two or three years before we actually got around to making it. And part of that was Gavin working to put money together, the right cast and money together. But, also it was one of those ones that needed more development. He had a very strong idea about the genre, but there was a very interesting process on that film paralleling the things that were going on in the United States, the scandals of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and a lot of these kind of morality - these huge scandals of institutional lying. And I think that film kind of found its center through those things that were happening. And as it became more than just a cop film, I became more and more interested in it, and I think Gavin did a wonderful job with that.

What do you guys make of the marketplace for this kind of film?

NORTON: It’s challenging. There are two kind of different marketplaces. There’s the marketplace of money to make the films. And then there’s the marketplace, you know, for putting them out, the distribution market, in a way. They’re sort of different challenges. It’s all shifting. It’s always shifting. If you’re on our side of the equation, you really can’t launch into it. I mean, I suppose you can. I don’t launch into it, something like this, thinking about the market for it per se. But, I think that the financing market’s in an interesting place. There are sort of trends and you sort of have to figure out who’s out there and who’s for real.

There’s a lot of soft money right now, and by that I mean money that - there are a lot of people making a lot of promises that turn to paper mâché as soon as they confront the realities that making movies is not exactly the most surefire bet. And I think a lot of people I know, a lot of my peers and colleagues, are going through - like Tim described.

Everybody I know has gone through some not-so-pleasant experiences of money that’s kind of new, players that are talking a big game and then kind of evaporate at the key junctures. So, it’s trickier than it used to be, I think. But, like Tim said, in this case we’ve certainly been lucky because these guys, Avi and his partners, they’re not a flash-in-the-pan operation. They’ve been around for a long, long time and made it work over a long period of time. I think we’re very lucky to have landed in one of the very reliable and solid partnerships. And I think to have evaded those pitfalls... In the last few months, I know a lot of people whose productions have gone down. So, I think we’re feeling very fortunate at the moment.

Do you go to theaters to see movies?

NORTON: Yep.

Do you wear a hat not to be recognized?

NORTON: I live in New York. Nobody cares. [laughs] No, I go to theaters all the time.

Do you ever sneak into your own film to see the public reaction?

NORTON: I haven’t done that in a long time. Sometimes. For one thing, if you did that and someone happened to run into you, I think you’re kind of popping the bubble of their experience, which you don’t want to do.

And if you’re at home watching TV?

NORTON: You know, it’s really funny, other people seem to see the films I’ve worked on on television. I don’t watch that much television. I can’t think of the last time I caught one of my own films on TV, but I certainly wouldn’t stop to watch it. [laughs]

You’re turning 40 next year. Has that changed anything at all?

NORTON: You’re the first person who’s asked me that question. No, I haven’t really thought about it much.

Are you worried about getting older?

NORTON: No. I think 40 is the new 27. [laughs]

If we could just, very quickly, jump back to your decision to shoot in Shreveport. As an Oklahoma native, I am aware that the Oklahoma Film Commission has been pushing really hard and are still having some issues to get people to shoot films in Oklahoma. So I’m wondering why not use the real settings outside of Tulsa for this film, rather than shooting in a different state?

NORTON: Actually, Shreveport looks more like Idabel than Tulsa does. I mean, you know, there are areas around Shreveport that are geographically almost more similar than northern Oklahoma. Louisiana is offering us tax credits now, too.