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Edward Norton: Running The NY Marathon, Tweeting And Raising Money For The Maasai

2009-10-26T12:00:48Z

Edward Norton is sitting next to a Maasai warrior describing how he greases up his chest to prevent his nipples from bleeding.

The warrior is Samson Parashina, 32, President of the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust. On Norton's other side is Luca Belpietro, the Trust's Italian founder. Norton is President of the Board and is discussing preventative measures taken as he prepares for his first marathon (more on that below).

The three are part of a 30-person team, including three Maasai, running Sunday's New York Marathon to raise money for the MWCT, dedicated to protecting the Maasai's tribal homeland.

Norton's introduction to the MWCT came as a tourist eight years ago on a trip to Kenya to climb Kilimanjaro. Since then he's returned with friends and family (his sister works in Uganda and Rwanda and his father is heavily involved with the Nature Conservancy).

"People were so consistently blown away by what these guys were doing," Norton told Huffington Post of the Trust. "It was a very pioneering approach to community-based conservation. Over time I started to feel that even though it's a very specific, small project, it has real relevance as a model to conservation globally."

But it relied on tourism.

"I thought it would be great if this was funded in a more reliable way," Norton continued. "I thought that's what I could actually play a role in doing. Connect the good work they're doing with pipelines of support that were more reliable."

After years of cocktail parties and dinner parties, Norton wanted to do more.

"I'm pretty sure Samson thought all people do here is have dinner parties," Norton said. "The idea of running the marathon was something a lot more guys could engage with and participate in."

While Norton did not initially plan to run, everyone assumed he was participating.

"Suddenly it was like, oh god, I have to do this," Norton says he realized. "But it's been fun."

Training started in June and has taken Norton to Kenya and back, "It's very difficult. It has its plateaus. Getting to 12 miles you're like, this is ridiculous, I'm never going to get to 26. Then you get to 15 and you think you're never going to get to 18. Then you get to 20, and you're kind of in striking distance."

And while he's suffered shin splints, Norton has thus far avoided the previously-mentioned marathon scourge: bloody nipples.

"That horrified me so much when I heard about it that when I was running like, three miles, I was Vaseline-ing and band-aiding my chest.," Norton said as he made phantom circular strokes around his chest. "I was like, that is not going to happen to me."

In addition to training, the intensely private Norton started tweeting. After talking to Ashton Kutcher about money he raised via Twitter for malaria nets, Norton started a Twitter account that now has over 120,000 followers and has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"It you can convert social networking, sort of Obama-style, into meaningful communities of interest and support, then it's hard to look at it as superficial." But, Norton has his sharing limits. "There are ways you can do it where it's not about giving over your personal life. "

Still, Norton is enjoying it, branching out from just training updates and frequent fundraising contests to advertise the dating prospects of his friend and teammate Andrew Wolff (here, here and here) and comment on movies he's seen (he recommends "Where the Wild Things Are").

With the three Maasai currently staying with Norton for two weeks around the marathon (Samson says his host is "a good roommate"), Norton is also tweeting updates and pics of their visit. Of the three only Samson had ever been on a plane before.

But despite his new affinity for Twitter (the Maasai call Norton's blackberry 'his wife') he's taking a wait-and-see approach to continuing social networking after the marathon.

On marathon day spectators should be able to spot the three Maasai decked out in their native kits, albeit with Puma sneakers if they choose to forgo their native shoes. Norton and his other teammates (including David Blaine, Alanis Morissette, assorted friends, Trust supporters, and corporate sponsors) will be in white jerseys with a Maasai warrior on the front and big MWTC lettering and a Puma logo on the back.

They're still trying to figure out what pre-race preparation will be, but Norton anticipates getting the team together "for whatever the Maasai preparation for battle is."

And of course, carbo loading.

So if you see three Maasai warriors at Il Buco this week (Luca's favorite), wish them luck in Sunday's marathon.

For more, check out www.maasaimarathon.com (designed by Norton's girlfriend Shauna) which has information, team profiles, and photos and video of Norton and the Maasai guys training, talking and even doing yoga.

Visit Puma.com to buy a Maasai Marathon t-shirt, with 50% of profits going to the Trust.

Tune in to HBO November 3 for "By the People," the Obama documentary that Norton produced. The film includes then-Senator Obama's 2006 trip to Kenya and additional footage will be on the DVD.

Brian Grazer On "Frost/Nixon," Bush's Damage, His Hair And More

2008-12-05T12:30:36Z

"Frost/Nixon" opens today and is earning rave reviews, (see today's NYT, NYP and NYDN as examples) especially for Frank Langella and Michael Sheen, who reprise their roles from the stage version as Richard Nixon and David Frost battling it out in 1977's historic interview. Sam Rockwell, Kevin Bacon, Toby Jones, Oliver Platt, and Rebecca Hall also costar.

Originally a play penned by Peter Morgan while he waited to make "The Queen," the film is directed by Ron Howard, who saw it onstage in London and went after securing the rights. In the end the film was jointly produced by Howard's Imagine Entertainment partner Brian Grazer and Working Title's Eric Fellner.

Before Thanksgiving, Huffington Post had a chance to talk Grazer about Nixon, the Bush Administration, what he does as a producer, and even his hair. Below is some of what he had to say.

What's your memory of Nixon resigning?
I remember him resigning. I remember the feeling of that. It's sort of empty. On one hand we really resented him. We disapproved of him. On the other hand it was sort of an emptiness within our political system. I guess I felt sad by it. I didn't feel triumphant, I felt sad.

Would you want Bush to be interviewed like this?
I really wish Bush would be interviewed. I just feel like Bush caused us so much more damage. Nixon was someone who had a gigantic flaw. He was a bully, an emotionally impenetrable man that was president of our country, with a gigantic flaw. A flaw like a handicap.

Bush on the other hand has caused us so much political, social, financial and cultural damage.

What news do you watch?
I like BBC news, I like some London news because you can get it earlier then anywhere else. I like Charlie Rose a lot.

What is your role in producing a movie like this, with Ron Howard finding the material and Working Title co-producing?:
With Ron Howard, we've been partners so long. He's made every movie with me. On this movie I would be, I guess, taste. The basic judgment of taste from the very beginning when he said he wanted to direct it.

If I didn't believe in it.... You know, believing in it means the subject and qualitatively. Is the writing good? Just, all those issues of taste and judgment and instinct. I am probably involved with that and I am partners with that decision. And of course involved with the casting of every role. Eric Fellner worked on this with me. Working on the script - Ron did a lot of that himself, and spent a lot of time with Peter Morgan, more than Eric or myself.

On fictionalizing a historic event:
Our job was to work closely with Peter Morgan, the playwright and screenwriter, and adhere to his truth. We are trying to convert a play into a film. The fact that there are factual events is secondary to what our overall, or our primary, intention is.

It is not a documentary.

Do you have any regrets about films you've made?
I mostly don't have a lot of regrets with the movies the last six or seven years. Comedies are very hard. I've learned a lot. You have to trust yourself, not research. Not testing. Testing helps, but you have to trust your own taste. If your taste says something isn't any good, don't let research rationalize that out of its own truth.

How do you do your hair?
It's not much of an ordeal. It happened by accident by my daughter who was 12 years old at the time. She just popped it up and was like, 'I like your hair that way,' and I kept the accident alive and it became my hairdo.

Do you still have a cultural attache?
That was sort of a joke title. I've been out meeting different people, I have a record, for 24 years, of meeting someone every two weeks. It helps inform your filter and hopefully informs your taste. I don't have anyone that's doing that for me right now. I use a couple of my assistants and I just say 'hey, can I meet so-and-so' and then we work on it or I'll call them myself, but I don't have a person that does that any longer.

Is there someone you next want to meet?
I just got emailed someone, a fixer like the character that Jodie Foster played in "Inside Man," a political fixer. I want to meet her. I just met this guy, a geneticist that wrote a book about the mirroring gene that creates empathy. So, the more this gene exists within your chromosomes, the greater ability to mirror. It's why it's difficult for people that are autistic to, ah, they're socially disabled because they don't have that gene.

Have you done a genetic test, like 23andMe?
I believe in it a lot, and I wanted to. I really wanted to. And then I read that someone tested and they had a 20-60% chance of Parkinson's, and that's too wide a gap for me. I'd feel like, 'Oh god! I've got it!'

If it's that wide, I don't want to know.

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Go see Frost/Nixon. It's not just for political buffs, It's thoroughly engrossing, fun, and even the jaded all-media screening attended by Huffington Post broke into applause at the end.

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