STRAIGHT TALK
By Jeffrey Zaslow
Issue date: Sept. 4-6, 1998
Edward Norton:
The actor, Matt Damon's co-star in a new movie about
high-stakes poker, says bluffing can pay off.
 n back-room Manhattan poker clubs, Edward Norton, 29, learned
what it's like to be inferior. He and Matt Damon hit the clubs to
prepare for their roles as card sharks in the new movie Rounders.
They even entered the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas -- and were
quickly squashed by real rounders ("the absolute opposite of
suckers").
"Poker is not a game of chance," says Norton. "It's a game of
psychology, strategy, math. When you sit with people who are better than
you, you know you're outmatched. It's like playing tennis with Ivan
Lendl."
Even before he immersed himself in the poker world, Norton had the
instincts of a fearless player. He knew how to bluff. When casting
directors were looking for someone to play the Appalachian murderer in
Primal Fear, the Maryland-born Norton fibbed that he grew up in
Kentucky. Using a hillbilly accent he'd picked up watching Coal
Miner's Daughter, he won the part.
He went on to a celebrated role as the weary lawyer in The People vs.
Larry Flynt. In the upcoming American History X, he plays a
neo-Nazi, and he's now doing a boxing film, Fight Club.
Often described as press-shy, Norton says keeping his personal life to
himself is like having a poker face. "If you load people up with prior
knowledge about you, it's much more difficult for them to see you as the
characters you play. It erodes your effectiveness," says the Yale
graduate.
Norton is a grandson of the late James Rouse, the famed real estate
developer (Baltimore's Harborplace, Boston's Faneuil Hall) and
humanitarian. His grandfather taught him social responsibility, he says,
and encouraged him to be an actor, even though it was a long-odds
gamble. There's a poker rule: Trust everyone, but always cut the cards.
To that, Norton counters, "Hopefully, everybody has someone in their
lives with whom they don't have to cut the cards."
ADVICE
Money isn't everything:
"When I was in Vegas, they talked about how
Bill Gates comes to town and plays $3 and $6 [poker]. I completely
understand that. Poker isn't just about money.
It's about gamesmanship, the ego of it."
Life, like poker, has "an element of risk. It shouldn't be avoided. It should be
faced."
Get your houses in order:
Norton worked three years for The Enterprise Foundation, his
grandfather James Rouse's program to create decent low-income housing.
"The unavailability of affordable
housing has a lot to do with so many social problems."
ASK NORTON FOR ADVICEEdward Norton will write or call a reader who seeks advice. By
Sept 13, write to "Straight Talk," P.O. Box 3455,
Chicago, Ill. 60654 (fax: 312-661-0375; e-mail: talk@usaweekend.com).
Photo Credit: WAYNE STAMBLER FOR USA WEEKEND
Zaslow is an advice columnist
for the Chicago
Sun-Times.
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