'Keeping the Faith'

Norton says directing his latest film was an all-consuming endeavor

Ed Norton collars comedy

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By Donna Freydkin
Reporting for CNN Interactive

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Picture Ed Norton, cinema's resident prince of darkness, starring in and directing a slapstick love-triangle comedy. It's sort of like ultimate good-guy Tom Hanks playing a demented serial killer: The actor and the role just don't mesh.

But perhaps after playing a ruthless killer in the slick "Primal Fear" and a white supremacist in "American History X," Norton just needed to get all warm and fuzzy on us. In his latest film, he does.

"Keeping the Faith," which he also produced, opens Friday, April 14. The comedy has Norton playing a Catholic priest, Ben Stiller portraying a rabbi who was his boyhood best friend and "Dharma and Greg" darling Jenna Elfman playing the stunning blonde object of their mutual affections.

Elfman, for one, had no trouble seeing Norton in a collar.

"We had this conversation, and everybody in the room just disappeared," recalls Elfman of her first meeting with Norton. "We were talking about our favorite old movies and all were the same ones. We just clicked in terms of our creative ideas. Edward and I really became good friends."

In person, Norton is aloof and somewhat chilly; he's reluctant to reveal too much about himself. Underneath the frost, though, is a funny guy, someone willing to sit down and talk about his directorial debut.

CNN: Why choose a romantic comedy for your directorial debut?

Norton: Most of the good directors that I talked to or that I'd worked with all said -- I said, "Do you think it matters if it's a comedy? Do you think it matters what kind of movie it is?" and Milos Forman said, "I don't even remember my first four movies." You just have to start. And (David) Fincher said the same thing to me: "Do you think 'Alien 3' was my heart's desire? You've just got to begin." And I think it's really true, because I think it's such a steep learning curve that there's no other way to learn that job than to do it and you've just got to do it.

CNN: Given your resume, which isn't exactly laden with funny films, were you at all nervous about tackling comedy?

Norton: The thing about a comedy is that it's an all-or-nothing proposition. ... I showed the movie to Fincher and I was kind of nervous, because he's the ultimate kind of king of darkness, and he was like, "Oh my God, I could never make a movie like this, this is so cool."

CNN: You wear three hats in this movie. What proved to be the most challenging for you: acting, producing, or directing?

Norton: Directing, for me, was a totally consuming experience. Acting is too, but it's more contained, period, because it begins and it ends. Someone else is left to put it all together. But when you're the person that's left to put it all together, you just go through so many different phases with it. And directing calls on so many disparate aspects of skills. It's the pure creative storytelling but it also has the managerial demands.

CNN: This film is almost an homage to New York. Are any parts of the city especially close to your heart?

Norton: I lived on the Upper West Side for a long time, so I enjoyed shooting up there. We'd be shooting on Riverside (Drive) or West End Avenue and we'd have the Knicks game on the monitor. And Ben's mom would come from their apartment around the corner -- he grew up there. It was great. It was like being in a neighborhood.

Norton and Ben Stiller grapple for Jenna Elfman's affections in the romantic comedy, "Keeping the Faith"

CNN: Why New York?

Norton: Because New York is -- I mean, the United States is ahead of the curve in dealing with multiculturalist issues and New York is in front of the U.S. curve. Everyone is a mutt. In addition to the fact that I lived here and really wanted to walk to work, I'm a total New Yorker and it's everything I like about the city.

CNN: So, was it fun directing this movie?

Norton: Yeah, it was fun -- assuming that occasionally curling in the fetal position is fun. But it is fun, in the sense that it's a high-wire act.

CNN: Did you walk away from the set with any insights or life lessons?

Norton: I think it was a good experience for me. ... (I)t was a spiritual challenge to remain Zen in the face of the chaos that inevitably happens in the course of a day of making a movie. All this money is flowing straight down the toilet and you're sitting, waiting for clouds to move, and you just have to cool out and accept it as part of the process.

CNN: Now, you've done comedy, thrillers and mysteries. You seem to consciously choose wildly varying roles. Do you do it to keep things interesting?

Norton: Making movies is kind of a grind on a certain level. And for me, I think I would get bored very quickly if I was working in the same kind of tone each time or on the same specifics; it would just bore me.

CNN: Given the vastly darker movies you've starred in, do you think there's any kind of misconception out there about you?

Norton: Yeah, but I don't think this is any more of a window into me than any of the other ones. This isn't going to put people on the scent of anything more accurate.

CNN: So, who is the real Ed Norton?

Norton: That's not relevant. It's really not. It's not relevant and it's also counterproductive to things I'm doing within the sphere of being effective.