10 Serious Actors Who Successfully Made The Jump To Comedy

Edward Norton is the poster boy for acting craftsmanship. You can stick this guy into any role, big or small, period drama or summer blockbuster, and he's going to make it look effortless and easy. But it's not. Making acting look easy is probably the most difficult things for an actor to do.

In his feature film debut, Norton earned an Oscar nod and won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of an accused murderer with split personalities. A few years later, he not only accepted the "passing of the torch" from fellow method actors Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando in The Score, he yanked it right out of their hands. And then there's American History X, which just...wow.

But perhaps more surprising than how quickly Norton was able to showcase his immense dramatic talents was how inconspicuously he could turn to comedy.

Keeping the Faith, also Norton's directorial debut, could easily qualify as the most underrated romantic comedy of this century. His comedic timing is impeccable, even when it's of the family-friendly variety, but is especially prominent in the darkly humorous Death to Smoochy, another wildly underrated film.

Norton now resides in Wes Anderson's ever-expanding arsenal of character actors, so it seems he won't be leaving the understated comedy world anytime soon.