Edward Norton has to be one of the most underrated actors out there. Since he exploded onto the scene in his Primal Fear debut, he has acted with impressive consistency, never once giving a performance that fell short of his incredibly high standards. His intelligence and charismatic acting style is a sight for sore eyes in a world where Sylvester Stallone is, somehow, still an actor. It is impossible to encompass all of Norton’s fantastic performances in a short piece of writing, but I have attempted to discuss a few of his best-known and most enjoyable works.

Norton’s natural talent is evident in his film debut, Gregory Hoblit’s 1996 crime-thriller Primal Fear, for which he won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Anybody who has so much as scratched the surface of Norton’s extensive filmography has probably noticed that his performance of characters with some sort of dissociative problem or who undergo a significant change in personality is, for some reason, a recurring theme. Well, this all started with Primal Fear. In this film, he plays Aaron Stampler, a seemingly shy and ingenuous altar boy who is accused of the murder of an Archbishop. The plot revolves around Stampler’s trial, in which a high-profile lawyer, played by Richard Gere, attempts to prove his innocence. However, it is soon revealed that there is much more to Stampler than meets the eye when his other, much more sinister, personality is revealed. Full of dark secrets, dramatic court scenes and plot twists, and dealing with important themes such as religious corruption and sexual abuse, Primal Fear is well worth a watch. However, it is Norton’s flawless performance that propels the plot and makes it impossible to draw your eyes away from the screen. He stammers his way through the film with an air of utterly convincing sincerity, with every fibre of his being embodying the appearance of a frightened, guileless teenager. His performance of Stampler’s alter ego, the violent and malevolent Roy, is so dark and unnerving that you cannot help but feel uncomfortable when watching him. The contrast between these two personalities that he plays provides a preview of the huge range of roles that he went on to capably play over the course of his career.

American History X, Tony Kaye’s 1998 crime and coming-of-age film is another must-see work of Norton’s. It’s true that in this film he retains his prisoner’s uniform, but he has transformed his style in other ways; namely with a large swastika tattoo. He plays Derek Vinyard, a former neo-nazi and leader of a white supremacist gang who is imprisoned for manslaughter when he kills a black man who is attempting to steal his father’s truck. Derek is released from prison a changed man who no longer holds racist ideals, but he discovers that his younger brother Danny, played by Edward Furlong, has fallen back into his old ways. The film follows Derek’s attempts to dissuade Danny from going down the same path as him. Once again, Norton’s performance is captivating, and he was unsurprisingly nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for the role. The relationship depicted between the two brothers is truly touching (well, as touching as a relationship between a neo-Nazi and an ex neo-Nazi could be, that is). It provides a fascinating insight into the origins of racism and the way in which it can be passed down through the generations. It is commendable how Norton has the ability to take such an inherently dislikeable character and make him both sympathetic and engaging. You will probably find yourself rooting for Derek, and in turn rooting for Danny for the sake of Derek. It humanises people who have abhorrent views, not in a way that excuses it, but in a way that enables us to better understand its source and the ways in which it is inclined to intensify.

It is impossible to discuss Norton’s career without mentioning what is probably his best-known role, that of the unnamed Narrator in David Fincher’s 1999 cult classic Fight Club. In this film, Norton plays a troubled insomniac who meets and begins living with a man named Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt. The two men form an underground fight club, which goes about as well as you can imagine. This club escalates into a much larger operation, aptly named Project Mayhem, and the narrator’s increasing dissociation from reality soon poses terrible problems, ending with one of the most iconic film twists of all time. At the time of its release, the film did not meet expectations in the box office, received mixed reviews from critics and was a source of controversy due to its depictions of violence, because naturally it was a real shock that a film called Fight Club actually had fighting in it! However, the reception to the film has considerably warmed over time and it is now generally viewed as one of the best films of the 1990’s. Despite its initial reception, Norton’s performance in Fight Club has consistently been lauded by audience and critics alike. At times, Fincher even encouraged method acting on set which is interesting to consider in terms of Norton’s performance. In fact, the famous scene in the car park when Norton hits Pitt’s ear was the result of an instruction to Norton from Fincher that Pitt was not aware of, meaning that Pitt’s indignant exclamation of “You hit me in the ear!” was his real reaction. Norton, a very unassuming-looking man, switches seamlessly between the exhausted insomniac, weeping in the arms of a man in a cancer support group, to the ruthless, bloodthirsty fighter who beats Jared Leto’s ‘Angel Face’ to a pulp because he “felt like destroying something beautiful.” As always, he is equally as convincing in both of these modes. Fight Club is a brilliant film that any self-respecting Edward Norton fan must watch.

Another standout performance of Norton’s career came in the shape of Scout Master Randy Ward in Wes Anderson’s 2012 coming-of-age film, Moonrise Kingdom. Despite all of the macabre parts that he is known for, Norton slots in perfectly to the vibrant and eccentric world of Wes Anderson, showing his capacity to excel in a vast range of roles. This film is about two twelve year old misfits who fall in love and decide to run away together. With a storm rapidly approaching the island on which they live, a search party endeavour to find them before it is too late. It is a delightful film full of Anderson’s trademark quirky characters. Scout Master Ward is the leader of a scout group at Camp Ivanhoe and he organises a rescue mission with his scouts to find the runaways. It takes a certain sort of actor to be able to shine in a Wes Anderson film, as the director’s style is so unique and offbeat. Norton appears to revel in the distinctive script and with his illustrious charm and his considerable finesse, he ensures that Scout Master Ward is moulded into a classic Anderson character. It is impossible to imagine any other actor playing this role, because the overly earnest, sometimes incompetent and always eccentric Scout Master Ward is quite simply Norton through and through. It is testament to his performance in this film that he was also recruited for Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and later Isle of Dogs, which are also high on my list of recommendations.

One of Norton’s more recent performances was in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s 2014 black comedy Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), in which he plays Mike Shiner, a talented but erratic actor. The premise of this excellent but bizarre film involves Riggan Thomson, a washed-up Hollywood actor played by Michael Keaton, whose main claim to fame is that he played a character called ‘Birdman’ in a series of superhero films. Thomson is determined to reignite his career through his production of a Broadway play, which suffers various catastrophes along the way. All of this happens while he is haunted by an inner ‘Birdman’ voice that taunts him while he regularly visualises himself performing acts of telekinesis and levitation. It is very revealing that in a film this strange, Norton’s Mike Shiner is the first thing I remember when I think about it. Norton’s performance is cleverly nuanced throughout. He manages to make Mike Shiner so wonderfully obnoxious that he almost makes his neo-Nazi from American History X seem endearing, yet he also plays him as a character with hidden depths that are gradually revealed. One of the greatest things about Shiner is that he is king of the meltdown. The film is worth watching if only for the scene in which Shiner takes his stage directions a little too literally and becomes inebriated during a performance, which results in an extremely memorable “Did you replace my gin with water, man?” rant and a thorough thrashing of the set. Norton develops Shiner in an utterly believable way, enabling the audience to empathise with him despite his many negative qualities. As he plays an actor, his acting skills and the true extent of his talent are consciously drawn attention to. He conveys a huge range of emotions in every glance and every word uttered. Once again, Norton was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor in this role. There appears to be no end to this man’s talents.