Best Actor: Edward Norton
'AMERICAN HISTORY X'>> For his role as neo-Nazi Derek Vineyard in 'American History X,' Edward Norton pumped iron, guzzled protein shakes and ate "everything in site" for three solid months. "I got really large and tough," he reports. A good thing, too, since he would need his strength. Not only did the film's director, Tony Kaye, insits on losing his director's credit (he didn't like New Line's final cut, but Norton stands by it), but there was also that little matter of how to make a violent skinhead sympathetic to audiences. Norton, a 1990 Yale graduate who got an Oscar nomination his first time out (for 1996's 'Primal Fear'), found the acting exercise intriguing. "The character is monolithically horrible," says Norton, 29. "But the audience is forced to deal with the tragic circumstances that have shaped this guy's life - and in some ways sympathize with him. As an actor, that was the challenge." Note to Norton: You succeeded. >> Photograph by Mary Ellen Mark.
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