Ed Norton considered getting stoned for his role in ‘Leaves of Grass’ but decided against it because “you’ve got to be able to focus.”

The actor plays twin bothers — Bill, an Ivy League professor, and Brady, a hydroponic marijuana grower — in the film, which screened at TIFF. And MTV reports that Norton wondered at one point if method acting was the way to best play moments when a character is under the influence.

“I wondered, ‘Would being stoned look way better on the film than acting stoned?’” Norton reportedly said. He opted, however, to forgo the high in favour of clarity. “The truth of the matter is, making movies is so … especially doing something like twins … you’ve got to be able to focus. I don’t think I could function the way I need to function.”

MTV says Norton is a big proponent of marijuana legalization, which he called, “just rational.”

“Our culture exists with these ridiculous hypocrisies of legalizing one form of controlled substance versus another,” he explained. “The economic arguments, the arguments in terms of both enforcement and safety [and] rehabilitation, it’s something we’ve got to get around to a more rational place on.”

‘Leaves of Grass,’ a comedy thriller, also stars Richard Dreyfuss and Susan Sarandon. It opens in theatres December 25.

(Photo by PR Photos)