Edward Norton on Motherless Brooklyn’s Journey from Print to Screen

So how long did this, I mean, how long did you sit on this story? How long did you know about this and what was the process of having this sort of build in your mind to the point where you wanted to write it, direct it, produce it, cast it? Honestly, I read the book exactly 20 years ago. I read it in the fall of 1999 when Fight Club came out. Right around the time I read this novel, Motherless Brooklyn, but the novel is about the heretic detective who's trying to solve the murder of his only friend, basically. But it takes place in the 90s. It's not about any of that stuff, about New York in the 50s or anything. It's just ... The character is just amazing though, like amazing. So when I read it, the hook was the character. I was like, what a great character. It's such a wild ... He's like just this hot mess of ... He's smart, but he's totally messed up. He's funny, but also really pretty painful and lonely. It was just everything. And I was like, that's ... I could get so into trying to figure that out. For reasons that are a little hard to explain, the tone of the book feels like a 50s detective novel, but it's set in the modern world. And I was afraid in a movie that would feel a little bit like the Blues Brothers, like guys in fedoras, but a Prius is floating by. And so you're sort of like, maybe this would just be cooler if we set it in the 50s. And I talked to the author about that and he was super into those movies. And so he said, okay. Wow. But then the middle period was the period of mashing that up with these sort of stories, the New York Chinatown kind of of it, the deep dark history of what really went on in New York. And that took a long time. And then I had it ready in 2012. I was really ready to go. And I just couldn't get it to ... I couldn't get ... Bruce said he was in and that was kind of angry, but I couldn't get everyone I wanted together at the same time. And I couldn't get the amount of money I needed or that I thought I wanted. And I couldn't get a studio to back it. Because honestly, number one, I'm not like a green light anything he does kind of an actor. That's just ... I think that's a different sort of thing. But also I was out there saying it's sort of like Rain Man meets LA Confidential and people's eyes just kind of cross. They're like, bring us the next one. They're like, we don't get it. We don't get it. We don't get yet. And also I got like ... I had this idea of getting ... I love Radiohead and I like jazz and I wanted to like ... I got Tom York to write a song for the film, but I got Wynton Marcellus to do all the jazz and stuff. And people were also ... they were like, these things are not going to go well together. And then they went to get ... A lot of people have said to me, which is not ... It's not me taking ... A lot of people have said to me it's the best music in a film that they've heard in many, many years. Flea played trumpet and bass on Tom York's track in the film. And Flea's like a really good trumpet player and his dad was a jazz musician and ... I didn't know that. Flea came out of the movie like crying. He was like, that's honestly my favorite music that I've ever heard in a film. And I think ... But you can't tell people that ... I thought that would work. I thought this mashup would work because I knew Tom and I knew ... He loves Charles Mingus and I knew Wynton was capable of doing ... He's really interested in dissonant, weird edgier kind of modernist music as well. I was like, this is going to work. And it did. It's really ... The music's amazing in the film. It's like its own ... The record's out now and people are flipping out about just the music and the movie hasn't even come out yet. It's such a crazy combination of factors and details that you smashed all together. And it's got to feel ... First of all, it's got to be a tremendous relief and also feel amazing that you did it. I do feel that. I feel like it would have haunted me. It was rattling around in my head such a long time. I felt very discouraged about it at times. Because I was kind of like ... I've done a few okay things. I've done some stuff that was weird and that people didn't understand and it's come together pretty great. You know what I mean? And you sort of go, God. I never expect anybody to give me money to make something. That's just risky. I would never put money into making movies. Never. It's too risky. And I get it. So I'm not like, I deserve this. But it was more like ... Sometimes I was just like, am I going to be able to figure this out or not? Am I going to get this done? And I think getting it done and not having quit on it. And in some ways feeling ... Not actually knowing that it's better that I made it now. I know more. If I'd tried to do it 20 years ago, I didn't have the chops to do some of the things. Like working with Spike Lee and Alejandro and Yuridu and people like that really like it upped my sense of how to do ... I learned a lot about how to do a big thing without all the money in the world. Now this is released nationwide, worldwide, like when it's released on this Friday, right? Yeah, this Friday. It's everywhere. After tomorrow. Broad release. All over America, yeah. Yeah, it's a wide release here. And I think honestly the day it comes out, you can either see Terminator 9.11 or ours. And I certify on the Joe Rogan experience, there's not a grown up human being who will not be stoked about this film. I can say that people who are seeing it are very, very, very into it and very bought in because it is one of those ... It's a big meal, but it's a really rich, good meal and it has amazing, amazing performances. I don't think Alec Baldwin has ever been better in a movie, honestly. And I think Willem Dafoe is amazing. Michael K. Williams is amazing. The music is great. And it's a cool story and I think it's kind of one of those things that it's worth going to the theater to see. But I guarantee you it's more worth your time than another Terminator movie. Well, it sounds like it to me. I'm really excited about it and I will see it for sure. Thank you.