Edward Norton has made an impressive career out of playing angsty, self-absorbed, sneaky-smart hotshots. You can draw that line all the way from his breakout in 1996’s Primal Fear to his most recent Oscar-nominated turn in 2014’s Birdman. That’s precisely why the gentle, warm power of his work in A Complete Unknown, out Christmas Day, feels revelatory. The Boston-born actor has played a wide range of roles over his career—but as the soft-spoken, banjo-plucking, quietly revered folk icon Pete Seeger, he pulls off a performance as cozy as anything else in his filmography.

That said, his work in the film—which has already earned Golden Globe and Critics Choice award nominations—also has a bit of bite. James Mangold’s docudrama, largely told through live musical performances, captures a particular moment in American music that starts in 1961, when a young Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) lands in New York City with a handful of dollars and no notability whatsoever. Over the next four years, under the steady guidance of Norton’s Seeger, he becomes an icon, resisting his growing celebrity and the confines of folk music as rigidly defined by Seeger and his peers. This culminates in Dylan’s decision to go electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, against the wishes of Seeger’s crew.

In the film’s immersive climactic set piece, Seeger reveals a new, darker side that deepens Norton’s take on the character. It’s a reminder of the actor’s long-standing gifts—and what can happen when they get put to fresh, surprising use. In Norton’s own words, it’s just the kind of work he’s looking for these days.

Vanity Fair: You signed on to this film later than the rest of the cast, and I believe it’s the only movie you made this year. Are you more selective these days? What are you saying yes to?

Edward Norton: The inspiration does ebb and flow with me. Sometimes my mind is on other stuff, and maybe the bar goes higher in terms of taking something. Something has to really get under my skin to make me put down other things I’m doing and make room for it. I do get invested. My kids are young, I like to be with them. You’re making a choice.

If I get to a place where I’ve got a clear mind, I tend to want to start writing my own stuff again or contemplating what I might do. I’m a little bit picky—not in a way like I take it for granted. I agree with Judi Dench: When you have the privilege of having someone ask you to do something good like this, I don’t take it for granted at all. It’s special. I’ll put it this way: There’s a point where someone might say, “Read this,” and you read it and it’s a heist movie, and you go, It’s not that this is an important piece of work, but I’ve never done a heist movie. That sounds fun. There might just be novelty to a genre. I might be getting to the point where I’m not going to do something just because it’s a genre that I’ve never done before. It’s a thing I need to feel some sort of a connection to, or an investment, or that it’s got something to say. Have you watched No Direction Home, [Martin] Scorsese’s [Dylan] documentary?

I have.

There’s that great bit where Bobby Neuwirth goes, “Back then people didn’t say how many records you sold if you’ve got something to say.” And I love that. It’s something I feel is authentically different about that time. A lot of people that this movie depicts were trying to affect things. They had a feeling of purpose. In a weird way, they were a little bit skeptical about money, and, man, I do not feel that’s the ethos of the era that we’re in now. Maximization of box office, of record sales, of streams—that’s the collateral of the land. It’s a bit depressing, because there’s a lot going on in the world, and American culture is guilty of putting the highest value on maximization in its various forms. I’ll be honest: I sometimes am amazed at the degree to which I see it. You said frequency of work; I’m like, I did not become an actor to turn into a 9:00-to-5:00 salary slave. I don’t know when acting became a volume game. I really, really don’t relate to that. I didn’t do it to never have time to do anything else. I am amazed at what almost seems to be the anxiety people get into about not working.

I’ve spoken with a lot of actors lately who’ve said it’s a weird time right now. There’s the combination of industry contraction and the aversion to making movies like this—the kind of stuff I gather you’re interested in.