Motherless Brooklyn – Edward Norton’s film releases pan India on Nov 15

Oscar nominee Edward Norton is all set to bring to the big screen the story of Lionel Essrog –  a lonely private detective living with Tourette Syndrome who is committed to solving the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna. Directed, written, produced and also starring Norton, the noir drama set in New York – Motherless Brooklyn releases pan India on Nov 15 by Warner Bros. Pictures. Ask the incredible Edward Norton about how he juggled so many roles for this film – especially between direction and acting and he says, “Directing a movie is almost by definition antagonistic to the state of mind you want to be in as an actor,” Norton points out. “You want to be out of your head when you’re acting, and you’ve got to have your head on top of everything when you’re directing.  So that means if you’re doing both, first, you’ve got to really own that character long before you ever step into doing it.  But it also means that if you’re going to have any hope of focusing as an actor, you’ve got to have a game plan and you’ve got to have really experienced collaborators who are able to show up on the day having already asked all the questions, ready to execute.” 

About Motherless Brooklyn :

Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a lonely private detective living with Tourette Syndrome, ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). Armed only with a few clues and the engine of his obsessive mind, Lionel unravels closely guarded secrets that hold the fate of New York in the balance. In a mystery that carries him from gin-soaked jazz clubs in Harlem to the hard-edged slums of Brooklyn and, finally, into the gilded halls of New York’s power brokers, Lionel contends with thugs, corruption and the most dangerous man in the city to honor his friend and save the woman who might be his own salvation.

Motherless Brooklyn

Oscar nominee Edward Norton (“Birdman or [the Unexpected Virtue of Innocence],” “American History X,” “Primal Fear”) directed, wrote, produced and stars in “Motherless Brooklyn.”  The film’s journey to the screen began in 1999 when Norton saw the cinematic potential in Jonathan Lethem’s novel Motherless Brooklyn and its unforgettable central character.  But from the beginning, Norton aimed to transpose Lethem’s contemporary characters into a different period and plot and give it a distinctive atmosphere by re-setting the drama in the 1950s—a time of great change in New York City.

The film’s stellar ensemble cast also includes Bruce Willis (the “Die Hard” films, “Moonrise Kingdom”), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (“A Wrinkle in Time”), Bobby Cannavale (“I, Tonya”), Cherry Jones (“Boy Erased”), Michael Kenneth Williams (“When They See Us”), Leslie Mann (“The Other Woman”), Ethan Suplee (“The Wolf of Wall Street”), Dallas Roberts (“Dallas Buyers Club”), Josh Pais (“Ray Donovan”), Robert Ray Wisdom (“The Fix”), Fisher Stevens (“The Blacklist”), with Oscar nominee Alec Baldwin (“The Cooler,” “BlacKkKlansman,” “The Departed”) and Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe (“At Eternity’s Gate,” “The Florida Project”).