Edward Norton drives a hybrid car that runs on biofuel. His home in Los Angeles, nestled like an oasis among green trees under a hazy sky, is equipped with myriad solar panels. He is a passionate advocate for anti-smoking laws and a major financial supporter of more charities than you can poke a stick at. Norton is, quite simply, one of the most environmentally friendly actors on the planet.

FAMILY LEGACY

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Norton’s affinity for nature and the welfare of the planet was nurtured from a young age. His father, Edward Norton Sr, one-time attorney for then President Jimmy Carter, was an environmental lawyer and conservation advocate with a special interest in Asia.

“[The environment] was a longstanding passion of my father,” the 38-year-old actor told the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 2005. “He was a big outdoor enthusiast and he was an attorney by training. He was a federal prosecutor, and when he left that world, he was head of public policy for the Wilderness Society in the ’80s. All through my growing up, that was his work, his career. He’s been an enormously effective and groundbreaking environmental advocate. My brother and I spent vacations working for the Park Service in the Grand Canyon. My sister is now studying international environmental policy. It’s a part of what we grew up in.”

The work of his late grandfather, James W. Rouse, also heavily influenced the young Norton. Rouse was a real estate developer, civic activist and philanthropist with enough claims to fame to make any grandchild proud. He built the first-ever shopping mall. He designed planned communities to eliminate racial, religious and income-based segregation. He was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995. And he founded the Enterprise Foundation (now called Enterprise Community Partners), one of the most successful non-profit organisations in the US, which, over the years, has supplied 215,000 affordable homes to families in need.

LONGSTANDING PASSION

Norton hurled himself into the folds of his grandfather’s socially conscious organisation after he graduated from high school. The slim, quiet teenager was sent to Osaka, Japan, to carry out consulting work for the foundation, but it wasn’t long before another factor in his life started to gnaw at his soul: a love of acting.

“It’s a longstanding compulsion I’ve had since I was about five or six years old,” said Norton. “I can literally identify the moment it struck me. I went to see a play in which a babysitter of mine was performing. I was completely shell-shocked by the magic of this little community-theatre play; it just riveted me.”

At the age of eight, Norton surprised his drama teacher by asking what his character’s motivation was in a particular scene. It signified bigger things, a fact recognised by his grandfather, who was now urging him to return from Japan to concentrate on his art.

In the years that followed, Norton juggled drama school with a degree in history from Yale University. The struggle finally paid off in the mid-1990s when he caught the attention of the Signature Theatre Company in New York. One audition was all it took for Norton to land a lead role and acquire a permanent place in this famous repertory. It’s an honour he still takes seriously and he retains a place on the board of directors.

SIGNIFICANT FIRSTS

From then on, the soft-spoken Norton became a one-audition wonder. He walked into the audition for the film Primal Fear (1996) with a stutter and southern twang that helped him to beat more than 2000 other hopefuls (including Matt Damon) for the role of accused murderer Aaron Stampler. It was a project that almost didn’t get off the ground. A host of young up-and-comers, including Leonardo DiCaprio, had turned down the role, but Norton’s screen test caused a sensation seldom seen in Hollywood.

An Oscar nomination for his debut feature was followed by one for the highly controversial American History X (1998), a film containing some of the most graphically violent scenes in cinema history. But Norton was never one to shy away from a role just because of his image.

“I’m not interested in making movies for everybody,” he said, considering his acting career to date. “I like making movies for myself and my friends and people with my sensibility. I always felt that acting was an escape, like having the secret key to every door and permission to go into any realm and soak it up. I enjoy that free pass.”

The dark and surreal Fight Club (1999), Norton’s highest grossing film to date, was followed by his directorial debut on the romantic comedy Keeping the Faith (2000), a film he also starred in. For the young star it was a departure from his usual genre, a ray of light in his burgeoning body of dark work, but it proved his skill at capturing performance on film.

PLAYING COPS AND SUPERHEROES

It appears Norton’s first stint in the director’s chair will not be his last. He has just finished writing an adaptation of Motherless Brooklyn, based on Jonathan Lethem’s 1999 cult novel. He plans to direct the film – about an orphan with Tourette syndrome who must turn detective to avenge his mentor’s death – next year. “It’s film noir” is all Norton will give away about the project. However, Motherless Brooklyn will have to wait in line behind Norton’s other projects.

Pride and Glory, directed by Gavin O’Connor, tells the emotional story of a family of New York cops and explores the human impact of police corruption. The film’s production was anything but smooth. Pulling out with a chronic knee injury just prior to filming, Nick Nolte was replaced by another veteran actor, Jon Voight. Samantha Morton (River Queen, 2005) then departed from the cast soon after filming began. Reports of “scheduling conflicts” thinly covered up accounts of the actor’s temper tantrums, creating a controversy that seems strangely familiar to New Zealand audiences.

Pride and Glory features Norton as NYPD officer Ray Tierney, who must investigate an incendiary case involving his brother and brother-in-law, and sees the actor give an authentic portrayal of the often gut-wrenching results of family and institutional loyalty.

“I think it’s a very visceral film,” Norton told the IndieLondon website just after filming was completed. “I think Gavin [O’Connor] was really interested in the idea of what goes on in that moment when people in our generation realise they’ve been co-opted into participation in things that are deeply corrupt.”

Later this year Norton will play Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk, a role both fans and critics have been waiting to see. This will be followed by Leaves of Grass in 2009, a comedy thriller directed by Hulk co-star Tim Blake Nelson and produced by Norton, in which he will play identical twin brothers, one an Ivy League professor, the other a dope-smoking criminal.

CELEBRITY AND PHILANTHROPY

Throughout his career there has always been one constant in Norton’s life: he has always carried his family’s torch for philanthropy. He still serves on the board of trustees for Enterprise Community Partners and regularly hosts benefit screenings of his films at the Senator Theatre in Baltimore. For every film he has made, Norton has held a charity premiere at the theatre, usually to raise funds for the Johns Hopkins Neurosurgical Oncology Center, a facility that looked after his mother, Robin, shortly before she died of a brain tumour in 1997.

Today, his passion is the environment, a cause he supports through regular substantial financial contributions to the Grand Canyon Trust (founded by his father), the Wilderness Society and Earthjustice. This has led Norton to set up his own foundation that combines environmentalism with social responsibility.

In 2003, Norton teamed up with oil giant and leading solar panel producer BP to develop the Solar Neighbors Program. Now, every time a celebrity buys a solar system from BP Solar, one of Enterprise Community Partners’ low-income families gets one for free. So far, more than 25 systems have been purchased and donated – by the likes of Owen Wilson, Brad Pitt, Danny DeVito and Robin Williams.

ENVIRONMENTAL HIGH

Norton also serves on the board of Friends of the High Line, a group in New York dedicated to saving an old, abandoned railway line in Manhattan that runs a few storeys above street level. His involvement with the project dates back to his early days as an actor, when he would climb the rusting, graffiti-splattered scaffolding to a space overgrown with weeds and wildflowers. Here, surrounded by darkness and shadows, Norton would breathe in the energy of the city, dreaming of stardom.

Built in the early 1930s to separate freight lines from passenger lines, the High Line fell derelict in 1980 because of competition from other transport. It was one of the few places untouched by property developers and nothing more than an eyesore until Friends of the High Line rallied to change all that. As a result, the 2.3km strip of land is now earmarked for a public park, a place where New Yorkers can rise above the street and enjoy an open space.

“When you make a space like the High Line, you end up seeing what’s best about a city like New York in action,” Norton told The Globe and Mail. “Every day, you see people from every possible socioeconomic [and] cultural background mixing and mingling together and enjoying quiet space, and that’s just magical. I think that’s just unequivocally great.”

Behind all his ventures and successes, Norton credits his family and upbringing as the main influences in his life and on his beliefs and social and environmental consciousness.

“Even though you have an idea you know could be fantastic, it can be hard to get started. One thing I’ve learned from my family is that if you just get the ball rolling and put in a little effort, things will take off.”

Norton is living proof that a sense of responsibility starts at home.