FIGHT CLUB - ED NORTON DEFENDS 25TH HOUR'S GROUND ZERO SCENES

FIGHT CLUB actor ED NORTON has defended his new film's use of New York's GROUND ZERO, the site of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001.

The SPIKE LEE directed 25TH HOUR uses the area as its main backdrop, but Norton insists the movie had to feature the attacks as it was about the Big Apple.

He says, "Everybody who worked on this film lives in New York and they'd all say there is a political context to September 11th, but there's also an emotional context, it's something that happened and it's part of the fabric of the city now."

"I think if I'd felt at any time that we were taking the story from the characters and their crises and turning it into a political comment on those events I would have been very uncomfortable about that."

He adds, "It seems insane to make a film about loss and consequences of choices and taking things for granted and to not allow that new emotional reality into the background would have seemed like a denial."