Ed Norton discusses decision not to play Hulk in The Avengers

Ed Norton has been discussing his decision to turn down the opportunity to play the Hulk in The Avengers , and while not playing down the significance of his call, doesn’t express any regrets whatsoever.

“My feeling was that I experimented and experienced what I wanted to,” said Norton to NPR , when discussing his initial turn as Bruce Banner.

“I really, really enjoyed it. And yet, I looked at the balance of time in life 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 peoples’ 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.”

All of which sounds fair enough really, even if Norton’s agent might think differently...