SUBMITTED BY pimpjoe_esb

April 16, 2007 —

Superhero Hype! had a chance to talk to writer Zak Penn, less than 24 hours after the casting announcement that Edward Norton would be starring as Bruce Banner in the upcoming "The Incredible Hulk". Here's what he said about the news:

"I couldn't be happier about Ed Norton," he told us. "I worked on the first 'Hulk' movie and I remember talking about how awesome it would be if we got Ed Norton to play this part. He really was up for it the first time. I think Ed Norton's one of the best actors working, and even I was pretty shocked that he wanted to do it. It's one of those rare things where it turned out better than I [expected]. Look, there's a lot of really good actors who wanted to do it even before I wrote my script. I'm not just saying this, but I cannot think of a better person to play Bruce Banner. In this case, Ed Norton would have been at the top of my list.

"To me, the thing about Bruce is that he's a physicist, he's a super-smart guy who has a lot of repressed anger. To me, that is the essential thing you need to know about him. He could be tall or short, but you have to believe that he's a physicist, you have to believe that life is frustrating for him physically. Ed went to Yale. He's a really smart guy. He has an intelligence that you can see on-screen, which a lot of people who are great actors don't project that. He projects the guy that is smarter than you, and he also projects anger in a lot of his movies, 'Fight Club' being the most obvious example. If you think about 'Fight Club,' he has a lot of similarities to the Hulk as a character. Tyler Durden is his Hulk."

Read more of the interview below.