Name: Edward Norton Impersonates Marlon Brando & Robert DeNiro | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-01-09T15:58:49.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Edward Norton Impersonates Marlon Brando & Robert DeNiro | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-01-09. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Edward Norton Impersonates Marlon Brando & Robert DeNiro | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-01-09. Transcript available.

our first guest is an academy award nominated actor who stars in a new film
that's called the
score it opens on friday please say hello to the very talented edward norton i've
watched it for
years and now i'm actually sitting well glad to have you here how's your summer
going it's going
great what kind of stuff do you do are you not working now you got some time i
have been working
really hard and just just finished so um i've i've been in new york about 10
years so uh where
you're from originally i'm from baltimore baltimore there's someone one that's
typical you know one
person class it's a small city that's right they start and then they think oh
geez maybe i'll get
caught and uh i you know i've i've been um i've actually been apartment hunting
because i i've
lived here 10 years i've been saving up my money working hard that's all new york
city is about
looking for looking for an apartment so um it's it's been interesting because i've
been going around
and there's been a um there's been sort of a rumor that i've i've caught a whiff
of that somebody
named rudy has been seeing some of the apartments in front of me are you
kidding about that no i'm
serious and i you know of course i postulate that it's his honor and except
that it brought up a
couple thoughts one being why is a guy who's you know working in hollywood and
a public servant who's
claiming he has six thousand dollars in the bank looking at the same places so
i'm uh that made me
wonder but my my theory was uh my theory was that he's he's showing him to the
girlfriend yeah but
then he's gonna back he's gonna show a few downtown lofts and then say you know
they're doing great
things over in jersey city and we're gonna annex it anyway so over there yeah
it's all gentrified
it's very nice it's no but it's um i've been out of new york too long so it's
been have you found
a place you're gonna be able to move in soon i'm i'm having to mortgage um the
life of my entire
family to even consider it but um when you come here uh you have fun it's i
mean it's a great if
you're coming in for like three days new york is is heaven you know if you got
to live here it's hell
but three days you can have a lot of fun do you get to have any fun oh yeah you
know i i mean i've
lived here a long time i really love it but um but i i got back and you know i
got theater tickets
and what are you gonna go see well i saw the producers oh sure but well that's
that's a tough
ticket that's a tough ticket for any i'm sure everybody knows but i but i think
my ringer was
that i directed um a movie that ann bancroft was in and ann bancroft is married
to mel brooks well
there you go so there you go so so but then i got this story from ann that you
know mel's like
not not not just doling him out like she she actually told me that someone came
up to him
on the street and said you know like mr brooks you know i've got to get a
ticket my my husband's got
a week to live and he said not good enough you know i kept moving that's so
that's it and and so i got
nothing i might i said wow not good enough no so i but i managed to get them i
managed to get some tickets
and um i was with a bunch of friends you know they were really impressed we
went to chinatown for some
dim sum and like veteran new yorkers you know we knew we couldn't catch a cab
we'd get jammed up in
traffic so we went over we jumped on the red line we went up to times square we
got there perfect time
we walked out the it was beautiful night we're going to the theater we're going
to the producers you know
we're we're excited they're just bringing our step we get toward the theater
there's a mob of people
hoping for a death or a cancellation and and uh and we're going we've got
tickets you know we've got
tickets to the producers we're gonna see nathan lane and matthew broderick and
the producers and
there's people with hats there's such a crowd they've got control crowd control
people with hats and
there's a woman going you know if you are hoping for a cancellation wait over
here with the other deluded
people if you are if you are waiting to pick up a ticket wait over here if you
have tickets over here
once again nathan lane is sick and will not be performing oh no oh my god one
of my friends
literally looked like he'd been shot through the through the stomach he looked
up and kind of went
wow we decided to go anyway
wow so we went and it was like you know art garfunkel subbing in for
but honestly not the same that raises a great question because you you got to
have understudies
you know and and the poor guy who i mean that's a talk about a thankless uh
anonymous position to be
in what what we actually it wasn't art garfunkel i was kidding but which that i
would really have
my money back no no no you'd have had something there you'd have had something
my friend he's brilliant
but but he's not so how was the guy there was a guy his name was brad oscar and
we saw him at a
restaurant later and he could not have been better he was he told us he'd had
three rehearsals none
with matthew broderick none with the orchestra and he was flawless flawless and
it was and the
audience was going crazy for him so it was one of those special that's great
now have you had a
chance to go back to see it with the intended cast i have not yet so um you
know oh that's an ugly
story yeah oh my god it was i mean it you know you know you're you're there you
hope you're
impressing your friends everything's going your way and then suddenly and
suddenly nathan has a
regis philbin yeah wow that's sad have you seen it you haven't seen it i don't
leave the house you
know i i mel came to the set of keeping the faith when we were shooting in the
synagogue one time and
he told me that that's what he was working on and thank god i said to him you're
gonna make a mint
you know like because he he and so now he he credits me with foresight but but
um it it is
actually everything it's cracked up to be the hype is is is totally earned now
when we come back here
i want to talk a little bit about uh your uh film experience uh how you got
into film it was kind
of an odd audition wasn't it was it was am i right about this it was a
nationwide talent hunt or some
kind of a deal yeah i i never i can never remember what stories have gotten
made of it oh good so
some of them are true some of them are not some of them are not true oh well
make up another one
while we do this okay okay you're gonna think of a good story we'll be back
with edward york
is this the complete list of your film work got about eight or nine films about
right primal fear
1996 oscar nomination that was your first film experience that was my first
film yeah well that's
pretty good you get nominated for an academy award in your first try out that's
amazing now is that
was that the talent hunt uh film it yeah yeah it was it was not as it was an
extraordinary circumstance
but i i'd been i'd been doing theater in new york for a lot of years i mean i'd
been here a long time
and uh there was a casting director who had seen me in the theater here a lot
so it wasn't completely
out of the blue but they were seeing a lot a lot of people because they wanted
someone unknown all right
so it was it was um it was very very fortunate everyone says i love you uh the
people versus larry flint rounders
american history x uh another academy award nomination right there fight club
and uh keeping the faith
wow man sure and woody allen you worked with woody allen worked with woody
which was um a lifelong
ambition whenever people come on who have worked with woody allen we always uh
have the question
what what was that like you know i found him to be um uh no he you know what i
heard he was in a really
good mood on our movie people told me that and he um i found all the the rumors
about him not talking
and everything to be to be uh i think a self i think people don't go up to him
and so people don't talk
to him so i just figured i'm just going to talk to this guy and i i'd love
talking to him he was he was we
talked about sports and movies and what i got along with him absolutely great i
i loved him what what
we've heard about him when we talk when i say we i mean me and a couple of
folks watching but
is that as a director he is enigmatic he doesn't give you much direction did
you find that to be true
and if so is it good either either he really liked me and so he gave me a lot
of direction or he really
thought i was really bad and so he gave me a lot of direction but i do recall
um drew barrymore and
i played your fiancees in that movie and i don't know maybe she's told the
story too but the uh one
of the first big scenes we had was a scene you know classic woody allen shot of
us walking up central
park east and you know along fifth avenue in the trees and everything and and
and one one long
continuous talking woody allen new york street walk shot so um drew and i you
know we we really worked on
it and and got it pretty down and the first take we we went all the way through
it she cried like
right where she was supposed to cry stepped off i turned and sang because it
was a musical which
is a little odd but um and we looked at each other drew looks at me like hey
that wasn't so bad
you know not too shabby and um and he comes over and he goes you know okay kids
uh you see he said uh
you know he goes you know he went he said uh he goes well you know the thing is
we we had a little
traffic noise on that but it doesn't matter because in every other way that was
a total disaster
oh oh oh my goodness so it's like welcome to work with woody and then how many
how many takes did
you have to pursue we we got it we got it in about it was a traffic issue but
we we got it in about
10 probably uh speaking of uh well that you know that's not bad it's not bad uh
speaking of uh
interesting uh cast and uh circumstances in which to work on a film uh robert
de niro yes uh marlon
brando uh in this current film yeah well i mean you know the guy if someone
calls you and says we're
getting these guys together to do a dramatic reading of the phone book would
you show up you want to you
want to be there for that yeah i think they did that one summer in the park did
they do that in
the park i think paul you took your family yeah i think they did it yeah but um
what did you get
along with de niro had you known him from before i had i had met marlon uh a
couple maybe a year or
two ago he saw american history x and some other films and he really liked him
so i i met him and um
and knew him to be a very funny very nice guy and so i was comfortable with
that but um bob i i had not
met and was you know i had a little more trepidation i would think of of all
actors a an actor might work
with for the first time in a film those two perhaps could be the most
intimidating whether in fact they
are well they're the load stars that any any young actor is going to set their
sights by and and either
of them it would be thrilling together it was um it put me in mind of like you
remember the old george
goble's line about the world being a tuxedo and you're a pair of brown shoes
that's right yeah that's i felt
there was times i i was fighting fighting feeling like that so but but but they're
both um they're
both uh all that they're cracked up to be and and incredibly terrific in
different ways it was marlon
weird on this film or was it because you know there's the the story that he was
uh uh dressed
funny he had odd makeup on and no marlon had an idea about the character that
he wanted to run with you
know he i i i recall him saying at some point you know i was thinking of
wearing a muumuu you know
and we're like marlon it's a heist picture it's a heist you're amazing you're
amazing you are rich
little my friend no no he said he can do them all no i've been a i was around
these guys a long time
but marlon marlon marlon's just funny he's just a funny funny guy you know he
has he has these great
phrases like he i remember frank oz came in and you know frank was terrific he
let us improvise but one
time he came in and gave marlon a note real fast and and marlon went hey listen
bob you know you've
got to give me a little room to swing a cat here you know i was like i leaned
over to him i said what
the hell does that mean you know and he and he had he had some scene where he
had to say to he had to
say to bob you know well you know what would you say to four million dollars
and and um and and take
after take he kept saying you know four million tomatoes four four four million
clams four million
apples and finally someone said marlon can you just say four million dollars
you know get off the food
kick you know it's like but uh but he was great he was really great and and de
niro de niro is a whole
bob is bob is like one you know i mean he's a real he's truly a genius working
and he's everything
he's cracked up to be but he's um but he's also like he's got his own you got
bugs in here tonight
we got a guy supposed to come but he didn't because of the holiday to add that
to the checklist
uh and and was was marlon not speaking uh to the director frank no no no no no
that was that
that got a little that got a little grilled cheese sandwiches yeah i don't know
why that can't be a
bowl of doritos no no that got that got a little um that got a little overblown
did they not get
along or was it just silly no no it was it was it was silliness um and and and
all all all for the
good of the film in the end and everybody had a we had a great time i mean the
the first time the first
time that i sat that we sat down to do an act a scene with all three of us i
kind of let myself have
a little moment you know i was pretty much we'd been hanging out and it was
relaxed but i sat down
and we were going to shoot this scene in a jazz club and um you know marlon's
sitting there and
bob's sitting there and i'm sitting on a little couch and i'm thinking well you
know this is why i did
it right here there's one on the left and one on the right and and so you know
let's let's mix it up
let's let's do it and uh swing some cats yeah let's swing let's swing a cat
what is that so um so they roll you know they roll and there's kind of a hush
around the set because it
was our first time all three of us and this is you know what they're going to
be selling so uh the we
start and marlon has this bottle of um of aqua mineral you know like a thing
and you know he's
sort of talking about uh bugs actually in the thing and he's and he's talking
to bob and he starts
pouring and he misses his glass completely and he and he starts pouring the
water all down his front
which i realize he's not perceiving so so i turn i turn in the take to you know
look at bob to see if
he's picking up on this and bob's going he's having a little nap
and i and they call they call cut someone's man sees the stains yeah they they
call cut and bob
kind of bob kind of goes and he looks he looks over at me and he goes he goes
was i sleeping
and i said i said de niro no i said yeah i said yeah and he goes he goes oh
pleasure meeting you nice job have a great summer edward martin ladies and
gentlemen we'll be back with dido

Edward Norton Impersonates Marlon Brando & Robert DeNiro | Letterman

our first guest is an academy award nominated actor who stars in a new film
that's called the
score it opens on friday please say hello to the very talented edward norton i've
watched it for
years and now i'm actually sitting well glad to have you here how's your summer
going it's going
great what kind of stuff do you do are you not working now you got some time i
have been working
really hard and just just finished so um i've i've been in new york about 10
years so uh where
you're from originally i'm from baltimore baltimore there's someone one that's
typical you know one
person class it's a small city that's right they start and then they think oh
geez maybe i'll get
caught and uh i you know i've i've been um i've actually been apartment hunting
because i i've
lived here 10 years i've been saving up my money working hard that's all new york
city is about
looking for looking for an apartment so um it's it's been interesting because i've
been going around
and there's been a um there's been sort of a rumor that i've i've caught a whiff
of that somebody
named rudy has been seeing some of the apartments in front of me are you
kidding about that no i'm
serious and i you know of course i postulate that it's his honor and except
that it brought up a
couple thoughts one being why is a guy who's you know working in hollywood and
a public servant who's
claiming he has six thousand dollars in the bank looking at the same places so
i'm uh that made me
wonder but my my theory was uh my theory was that he's he's showing him to the
girlfriend yeah but
then he's gonna back he's gonna show a few downtown lofts and then say you know
they're doing great
things over in jersey city and we're gonna annex it anyway so over there yeah
it's all gentrified
it's very nice it's no but it's um i've been out of new york too long so it's
been have you found
a place you're gonna be able to move in soon i'm i'm having to mortgage um the
life of my entire
family to even consider it but um when you come here uh you have fun it's i
mean it's a great if
you're coming in for like three days new york is is heaven you know if you got
to live here it's hell
but three days you can have a lot of fun do you get to have any fun oh yeah you
know i i mean i've
lived here a long time i really love it but um but i i got back and you know i
got theater tickets
and what are you gonna go see well i saw the producers oh sure but well that's
that's a tough
ticket that's a tough ticket for any i'm sure everybody knows but i but i think
my ringer was
that i directed um a movie that ann bancroft was in and ann bancroft is married
to mel brooks well
there you go so there you go so so but then i got this story from ann that you
know mel's like
not not not just doling him out like she she actually told me that someone came
up to him
on the street and said you know like mr brooks you know i've got to get a
ticket my my husband's got
a week to live and he said not good enough you know i kept moving that's so
that's it and and so i got
nothing i might i said wow not good enough no so i but i managed to get them i
managed to get some tickets
and um i was with a bunch of friends you know they were really impressed we
went to chinatown for some
dim sum and like veteran new yorkers you know we knew we couldn't catch a cab
we'd get jammed up in
traffic so we went over we jumped on the red line we went up to times square we
got there perfect time
we walked out the it was beautiful night we're going to the theater we're going
to the producers you know
we're we're excited they're just bringing our step we get toward the theater
there's a mob of people
hoping for a death or a cancellation and and uh and we're going we've got
tickets you know we've got
tickets to the producers we're gonna see nathan lane and matthew broderick and
the producers and
there's people with hats there's such a crowd they've got control crowd control
people with hats and
there's a woman going you know if you are hoping for a cancellation wait over
here with the other deluded
people if you are if you are waiting to pick up a ticket wait over here if you
have tickets over here
once again nathan lane is sick and will not be performing oh no oh my god one
of my friends
literally looked like he'd been shot through the through the stomach he looked
up and kind of went
wow we decided to go anyway
wow so we went and it was like you know art garfunkel subbing in for
but honestly not the same that raises a great question because you you got to
have understudies
you know and and the poor guy who i mean that's a talk about a thankless uh
anonymous position to be
in what what we actually it wasn't art garfunkel i was kidding but which that i
would really have
my money back no no no you'd have had something there you'd have had something
my friend he's brilliant
but but he's not so how was the guy there was a guy his name was brad oscar and
we saw him at a
restaurant later and he could not have been better he was he told us he'd had
three rehearsals none
with matthew broderick none with the orchestra and he was flawless flawless and
it was and the
audience was going crazy for him so it was one of those special that's great
now have you had a
chance to go back to see it with the intended cast i have not yet so um you
know oh that's an ugly
story yeah oh my god it was i mean it you know you know you're you're there you
hope you're
impressing your friends everything's going your way and then suddenly and
suddenly nathan has a
regis philbin yeah wow that's sad have you seen it you haven't seen it i don't
leave the house you
know i i mel came to the set of keeping the faith when we were shooting in the
synagogue one time and
he told me that that's what he was working on and thank god i said to him you're
gonna make a mint
you know like because he he and so now he he credits me with foresight but but
um it it is
actually everything it's cracked up to be the hype is is is totally earned now
when we come back here
i want to talk a little bit about uh your uh film experience uh how you got
into film it was kind
of an odd audition wasn't it was it was am i right about this it was a
nationwide talent hunt or some
kind of a deal yeah i i never i can never remember what stories have gotten
made of it oh good so
some of them are true some of them are not some of them are not true oh well
make up another one
while we do this okay okay you're gonna think of a good story we'll be back
with edward york
is this the complete list of your film work got about eight or nine films about
right primal fear
1996 oscar nomination that was your first film experience that was my first
film yeah well that's
pretty good you get nominated for an academy award in your first try out that's
amazing now is that
was that the talent hunt uh film it yeah yeah it was it was not as it was an
extraordinary circumstance
but i i'd been i'd been doing theater in new york for a lot of years i mean i'd
been here a long time
and uh there was a casting director who had seen me in the theater here a lot
so it wasn't completely
out of the blue but they were seeing a lot a lot of people because they wanted
someone unknown all right
so it was it was um it was very very fortunate everyone says i love you uh the
people versus larry flint rounders
american history x uh another academy award nomination right there fight club
and uh keeping the faith
wow man sure and woody allen you worked with woody allen worked with woody
which was um a lifelong
ambition whenever people come on who have worked with woody allen we always uh
have the question
what what was that like you know i found him to be um uh no he you know what i
heard he was in a really
good mood on our movie people told me that and he um i found all the the rumors
about him not talking
and everything to be to be uh i think a self i think people don't go up to him
and so people don't talk
to him so i just figured i'm just going to talk to this guy and i i'd love
talking to him he was he was we
talked about sports and movies and what i got along with him absolutely great i
i loved him what what
we've heard about him when we talk when i say we i mean me and a couple of
folks watching but
is that as a director he is enigmatic he doesn't give you much direction did
you find that to be true
and if so is it good either either he really liked me and so he gave me a lot
of direction or he really
thought i was really bad and so he gave me a lot of direction but i do recall
um drew barrymore and
i played your fiancees in that movie and i don't know maybe she's told the
story too but the uh one
of the first big scenes we had was a scene you know classic woody allen shot of
us walking up central
park east and you know along fifth avenue in the trees and everything and and
and one one long
continuous talking woody allen new york street walk shot so um drew and i you
know we we really worked on
it and and got it pretty down and the first take we we went all the way through
it she cried like
right where she was supposed to cry stepped off i turned and sang because it
was a musical which
is a little odd but um and we looked at each other drew looks at me like hey
that wasn't so bad
you know not too shabby and um and he comes over and he goes you know okay kids
uh you see he said uh
you know he goes you know he went he said uh he goes well you know the thing is
we we had a little
traffic noise on that but it doesn't matter because in every other way that was
a total disaster
oh oh oh my goodness so it's like welcome to work with woody and then how many
how many takes did
you have to pursue we we got it we got it in about it was a traffic issue but
we we got it in about
10 probably uh speaking of uh well that you know that's not bad it's not bad uh
speaking of uh
interesting uh cast and uh circumstances in which to work on a film uh robert
de niro yes uh marlon
brando uh in this current film yeah well i mean you know the guy if someone
calls you and says we're
getting these guys together to do a dramatic reading of the phone book would
you show up you want to you
want to be there for that yeah i think they did that one summer in the park did
they do that in
the park i think paul you took your family yeah i think they did it yeah but um
what did you get
along with de niro had you known him from before i had i had met marlon uh a
couple maybe a year or
two ago he saw american history x and some other films and he really liked him
so i i met him and um
and knew him to be a very funny very nice guy and so i was comfortable with
that but um bob i i had not
met and was you know i had a little more trepidation i would think of of all
actors a an actor might work
with for the first time in a film those two perhaps could be the most
intimidating whether in fact they
are well they're the load stars that any any young actor is going to set their
sights by and and either
of them it would be thrilling together it was um it put me in mind of like you
remember the old george
goble's line about the world being a tuxedo and you're a pair of brown shoes
that's right yeah that's i felt
there was times i i was fighting fighting feeling like that so but but but they're
both um they're
both uh all that they're cracked up to be and and incredibly terrific in
different ways it was marlon
weird on this film or was it because you know there's the the story that he was
uh uh dressed
funny he had odd makeup on and no marlon had an idea about the character that
he wanted to run with you
know he i i i recall him saying at some point you know i was thinking of
wearing a muumuu you know
and we're like marlon it's a heist picture it's a heist you're amazing you're
amazing you are rich
little my friend no no he said he can do them all no i've been a i was around
these guys a long time
but marlon marlon marlon's just funny he's just a funny funny guy you know he
has he has these great
phrases like he i remember frank oz came in an