CANOE -- JAM! Movies: Ed Norton plays twins, one an academic, the other a crook, in 'Leaves of Grass'

Actress Keri Russell (left) director Tim Blake Nelson (centre) and actor Edward Norton share a joke as they pose during a photocall to promote their film "Leaves of Grass" at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday September 14, 2009. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO - Ed Norton wasn't looking for a job when the script for "Leaves of Grass" was put in his hands.

The star of such films as "Fight Club" and "The Incredible Hulk" said he was doing some writing of his own and was "determined to keep the doors closed against invitation into someone else's head space."

Director Tim Blake Nelson had written the story about twin brothers from rural Oklahoma who are polar opposites - one a university professor and the other a dope grower - with Norton in mind.

"I told him I would read it but that very likely I was not going to do it," Norton said while promoting the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival.

"Because he's cocky and full of himself he said, 'Oh you're going to read it and you're going to call me.' "

Norton said he read the script at his grandmother's house and was "literally angry when I finished it."

"I knew I was going to have to call him and say that he was right and I was wrong. It was kind of irresistible."

In the film Ivy League classics professor Bill Kincaid travels home to a life he's tried to leave behind. His brother Brady's reckless life of crime threatens to overwhelm the button-down academic.

Portraying twins meant Norton had to jump in and out of two different characters during the shoot, a feat co-star Keri Russell said left her in awe.

"He did it like every 10 minutes, he switched back and forth. It was insane," said Russell, best known for the TV show "Felicity."

Norton said that while it would have been logical to devote entire days to filming just one character, the approach he and Nelson took paid off.

"The things ... that are the most magical about the twins on screen together you could have never done unless we did them the same day," he said.

"You would have lost all the close connection to the rhythm."

The film's title comes from Walt Whitman's poetry collection of the same name.

"Keri's character articulates it best when she talks about how each of Whitman's poems establishes its own rhythm," Nelson said in explaining why he chose the title.

"That fascinated me as a student of poetry. But I think as a metaphor for living a life, what the Bill character learns in the film from Keri's character is ... establish your own rhythm."

"Leaves of Grass" is scheduled to come to Canadian theatres next year.

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