Neat shirt, chinos and sensible haircut. When you see Edward Norton in the flesh, it’s difficult to recognise him as the hipper-than-thou actor from Fight Club or American History X.

No, this Edward Norton, the one in front of me, is far closer to the gloriously off-key geeky swain in Woody Allen’s musical fantasy Everybody Says I Love You or the neophyte lawyer in The People vs Larry Flynt. At 37, he’s still remarkably youthful which may account for the frequency with which one sees his name attached to the word ‘preppy’.
His boyish good looks have not hindered his remarkable career in film. In any given straw poll to determine the planet’s Greatest Living Actor, Christian Bale is his only rival. Like the younger Robert De Niro, Mr.Norton is careful about the roles he commits to and is even more fastidious in his approach. A Yale history graduate who is fluent in Japanese, he brings an academic rigour to his craft. For Rounders he became a proficient poker player. For The Score he learned to crack safes. This seriousness is palpable in his two latest projects, The Illusionist and The Painted Veil.
In the first film he plays Eisenheim, a magician in turn-of-the-century Vienna who perfects his art and attracts the jealous attentions of Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) and the chief of police (Paul Giamatti). The Painted Veil, due here in April, is adapted from the novel by W. Somerset Maugham in which a high-minded bacteriologist takes his unfaithful wife (Naomi Watts) to a remote, cholera ravaged village in 1930s China. One is tempted to believe that the solemnity of these characters was part of the attraction for the sincere Mr. Norton.
“I suppose that’s part of it,” he smiles. “Probably in the case of The Illusionist I was really into the performance aspect of it. Over the course of the film he gives seven or eight performances and I thought it would be very challenging to execute these really formal performances pieces. And it was a romantic thriller and had a unique vibe to it. Walter in The Painted Veil is probably closer to what you’re getting at. It’s certainly something I relate to more. He’s a person that to other people’s eye seems less than suave or charismatic but what people come to appreciate about him over time is his dedication to his work, his thoroughness, his brilliance. And I liked the idea of a character whose heroism and worth emerges in a non-traditional way.”
Whip-smart and endlessly talented, you can see why Edward H. Norton has attracted plenty of female attention. But despite high profile relationships with Courtney Love, Salma Hayek and Drew Barrymore, he has never married (thus granting hope to millions). It’s odd then that his most recent work, including last year’s Down In The Valley, has touched so frequently on the theme on obsessive romantic love.
“I hadn’t drawn that connection but it’s interesting now you say it,” he nods. “Those films were all done in the same stretch and those three characters are all defined by love. With Down In The Valley, it’s a mad love. With The Illusionist, it’s more about a sense of destiny. But with The Painted Veil, it’s very rooted in reality – the way we project our needs onto people and the way we fall in love with that projection. And when we forced to confront the reality of who that person is, the disenchantment sets in. How do you get past that? How do you forgive one another? To me, the film is a complicated and very real answer.”
Edward H. Norton was born in Maryland in 1969 and raised in Columbia, in the planned community conceived by his grandfather, James Rowse, the civic planner and philanthropist who invented the shopping mall. Norton’s upbringing was certainly privileged. His father is a famous attorney and campaigning environmentalist, his mother, who died recently, was an educator who worked for good causes. Still, acting was an early obsession and his dedication was quickly apparent – the eight-year-old Norton once asked his drama teacher, “What’s my character’s motivation?” for a school production of Annie, Get Your Gun. Weren’t his parents worried by his passion for such an unorthodox profession?
“No, not at all,” he says. “They were very bohemian people. They were always passionate about theatre which is why I, in turn became passionate about it. They’ve always been supportive.”
Though Edward has played guitar with Hole and appeared in The Simpsons, one gets the sense that he’s a terribly earnest fellow. He doesn’t smoke. He’s an environmental activist. He doesn’t drink.
“Hang on,” he interrupts. “Who says I don’t drink? Did you read that on IMDB?”
Er. Maybe.
“Come on”, he laughs. “I’m Irish for Chrissake.”

The Illusionist opens March 2.