Edward Norton Academy Award for Best Actor. Later, Norton starred with Matt Damon in "Rounders", which follows two friends who urgently need to earn enough cash playing poker to pay off a huge debt. In David Fincher's 1999 film "Fight Club", Norton played an unreliable narrator who feels trapped in his white-collar position. It is based on Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name. To prepare for the role, Norton took lessons in boxing, taekwondo and grappling. "Fight Club" premiered at the 1999 Venice International Film Festival. During promotion for the film, he said, "I feel that "Fight Club" really, in a
Chuck Palahniuk his father, Fred Palahniuk, had started dating a woman named Donna Fontaine, whom he had met through a personal ad under the title "Kismet". Her former boyfriend, Dale Shackelford, had previously been imprisoned for sexual abuse, and had vowed to kill Fontaine as soon as he was released from prison. Palahniuk believes that, using a personal ad, Fontaine was looking for "the biggest man she could find" to protect her from Shackelford, and Palahniuk's father qualified. After his release, Shackelford followed Fontaine and the senior Palahniuk to Fontaine's home in Kendrick, Idaho after they had gone out for a date.