In , Bob Dylan wrote a letter to a friend in which he admitted to struggling with his sudden fame. In the missive, he mentioned celebrated protest-song writer Pete Seeger, his mentor on the New York folk scene, as one of the few things in his life that still felt untainted by his rapid ascent as a commercial music artist. Seeger, he wrote, represented a gentler side of his own nature that he was desperate to hold onto. A kind of paragon.
A figure of an artist as a good person β literally. But coming in as his replacement in January did not unduly intensify the challenge of portraying Seeger, insists Norton, despite the production requiring its actors to perform live on set. The pressure bore fruit in a performance that has already earned Norton a number of award nominations, including supporting actor nods from Bafta, the Screen Actors Guild, the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards.
He is not bristling or even batting away unwanted questions. He brings it up in the context of his admiration for Dylan as a more mythical, mysterious figure than Seeger. With such resistance to revealing his process and choices, Norton realises he must accept that he also cannot exert much control over how others perceive him. But Norton begs to differ. He sings about not using sugar and he plays a guitar.
Smoochy the Rhino is a folk singer for the left! He also sees a similar Seeger-ish saintly streak in the role he took for his feature directing debut Keeping The Faith. Still, he understands why Mangold and others have that view of him. The stretch was interesting.
But that is not so much the case these days, it seems. It is perhaps fairer to observe that Norton has become more selective in the roles he has taken. The people I still am drawn to go away and come back and kind of hit you.
