Edward Norton Talks About Missing Out on Hulk in ‘Avengers’

Edward Norton has no regrets he didn’t play Hulk in the billion-dollar smash film “The Avengers.” The “Birdman” star played the titular superhero in the 2008 film “The Incredible Hulk,” but left the franchise after a disagreement with the producers.

When Marvel Studios announced “The Avengers,” president Kevin Feige said they were looking for another actor to play Bruce Banner/Hulk, claiming that their decision to choose a new face over Norton was not based on financial reasons, but “instead rooted in the need for an actor who embodies the creativity and collaborative spirit of our talented cast members.”

The talented cast members included Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson. The role of Bruce Banner has since been secured by Mark Ruffalo.

Norton previously delivered a gracious farewell to the role, saying he was “very sincerely grateful” to Marvel for offering him the role. However, he couldn’t let go of Feige’s “cheap and unnecessary” claim that their decision to not bring him back was for other reasons than money.

“[Marvel] came to me avidly to talk about it and then at the end of the day it was just flat out a business decision,” he said, adding that Marvel’s move was “low, unprofessional and very dishonest.”

Years later, Norton has changed his tune about the whole thing. He told NPR that he wanted to do diverse roles and not be associated with just one role that others might think the only one he could do as an actor.

“My feeling was that I experimented and experienced what I wanted to. I really, really enjoyed it. And yet, I looked at the balance of time that one spends not only making those sorts of films but then especially putting them out, and the obligations that rightly come with that. There were just a lot of things – I wanted more diversity. I sort of chose to continue on my path of having a diversity of experiences. Maybe on some unconscious level, I didn’t want to have an association with one thing in any way degrade my effectiveness as an actor in characters.

“I think you can sort of do anything once, but if you do it too many times, it can become a suit that’s hard to take off in other people’s eyes. And if I had continued on with it, I wouldn’t have made ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ or ‘Grand Budapest’ or ‘Birdman’ because those all overlapped with [Avengers]. And those were more the priority for me, but I continue to be a fan and I’m really, really happy I got to do it once.”

Norton currently stars in “Birdman” with Michael Keaton. In the film, he plays Mike Shiner, a pretentious but talented theatre actor cast in a play directed by Riggan Thomson (Keaton), a washed-up Hollywood star. Zach Galifianakis, Naomi Watts, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan and Emma Stone co-star.

Meanwhile, Marvel has released the first trailer for “Avengers 2” after a teaser of the film was leaked online.