Edward II: Norton Doubles Up for Leaves of Grass

The other Edward Norton is holding out his left hand.

Do you love Edward Norton? Well, I do, so the news in Variety today that he’s signed on to play twins in Tim Blake Nelson’s Leaves of Grass means double the fun for me.

Blake Nelson, himself one of the more intriguing people working in film today, wrote the screenplay about identicals, one an Ivy League classics professor and the other a “pot smoking career criminal.” Blake Nelson will direct and Norton, an obvious fan of the project, will produce along with his cohort at Class 5 Films, Bill Migliore.

Norton and Blake Nelson just finished working on The Incredible Hulk…(2? There doesn’t seem to be a sequel-ish tag attached to this title yet) and it’s a fair bet that there was no offscreen drama and sniping going on between the two. Blake Nelson wrote the part(s) specifically for Norton and said there would have been no second choice if Norton had turned it down.

But mutual admirer Norton was obviously impressed, plus the prospect of playing twins always raises the specter of awards, critical acclaim and such (if he was playing twins who were both suffering from multiple personalities, he’d be a slam dunk for a Daytime Emmy; soapsters love this kind of stuff). And this way, one Norton twin can rewrite the screenplay and the other can take over the final edit. Just kidding, Edward!! I only joke because I love you.