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Adrien Brody
Woodhaven, Queens, New York City, New York, USA
6' 1" (1,85 m)
The son of Hungarian-born photographer Sylvia Plachy and
retired history professor Elliot Brody, Adrien Brody grew up an only
child in the Woodhaven section of Queens, New York, where he accompanied
his mother on assignments for the Village Voice...
He credits her with making him feel comfortable in front of the camera. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts in New York.
Despite a strong performance in La delgada línea roja (1998), time constraints forced the director to edit out much of Adrien's part. In spite of his later work with Spike Lee and Barry Levinson, he never became the star many expected he would become until Roman Polanski called on him to play a celebrated Jewish pianist in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. He pulled off a brilliant performance in El pianista
(2002), drawing on the heritage and rare dialect of his Polish
grandmother, as well as his father, who lost family members during the
Holocaust, and his mother, who fled Communist Hungary as a child during
the 1956 uprising against the Soviet Union.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Red Hawk Management
Trade Mark
He credits her with making him feel comfortable in front of the camera. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts in New York.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Red Hawk Management
Elongated nose
Calming voice
Intense Physical and Mental commitment to his roles
Often plays Intellectuals or artistic types
Frequently plays characters with mental illness'
Trivia
Is the only actor to win a Best Actor Oscar when nominated alongside four previous Oscar winners.
In 2003, at the age of 29, he replaced Richard Dreyfuss as the youngest actor ever to win the Best Actor Academy Award, for his role in El pianista (2002).
Has great appreciation for hip-hop music. Like the Beatnuts, one of his favorite groups, Brody is also from Queens.
Performed magic shows at children's birthdays as a child as the Amazing Adrien.
In 2004, Esquire Magazine named him the Best Dressed Man in America.
Once owned and drove a Hummer H2.
Was considered for a role in Pearl Harbor (2001).
Was dressed by Zegna for the Academy Awards.
Is a big hip-hop fan and plans on becoming a producer. He is being mentored by The RZA.
Ranked #21 on VH1's 100 Hottest Hotties.
Adrien's father, Elliot Brody, is a retired history teacher;
Elliot is of Polish Jewish descent, and lost family members in the
Holocaust. Adrien's mother, Sylvia Plachy, the renowned photographer,
fled Communist Hungary as a child during the 1956 revolution against
Russia. Adrien's maternal grandfather was from an aristocratic Hungarian
background, while Adrien's maternal grandmother was of Czech Jewish
descent. Adrien's mother was not aware of her own mother's Jewish
background until later in life.
Took acting classes as a youth; by age 13 he had done an off-Broadway play and a PBS-TV movie.
In 1992, he was seriously hurt in a motorcycle accident in which
he flew over a car and crashed feet-first into a crosswalk. He spent
months recuperating.
To prepare for his title role in El pianista (2002), he learned to play Frédéric Chopin
pieces on the piano and shed 30 pounds off his already-thin frame. He
cut himself off from his real life by giving up his car and apartment
because he felt responsible to those Polish Jews who had suffered
greatly and wanted to connect, to some small degree, with their hurt and
despair.
Shares a birthday with Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Admits a shot of his parents in a passionate, back-bending embrace inspired his famous kiss with Halle Berry at the Oscars in 2003.
Is the only American actor to win a César, the French equivalent to the Oscar.
Has been compared to Robert De Niro and Al Pacino for his unconventional acting skills and unique looks.
Did sessions in an isolation tank, performed prison exercises, and went on a protein diet for his role in The jacket (2005).
He was furious when his nose was broken during the final fight in SOS Summer of Sam (Nadie está a salvo de Sam)
(1999). When he had it fixed, he didn't change it: his nose is one of
his most distinctive features and sets him apart from other actors.
Close friends with Asia Argento.
Grew up in the Woodhaven section of Queens in New York.
Was friends with the late Tupac Shakur, with whom he starred in the little-known film Bullet (1996).
He signed on to make Pan y rosas (2000) without a script because he trusted the director Ken Loach.
Prior to filming, he also went undercover to research life as a union
member in Los Angeles, California. He went to conventions and sat in on
strike talks. A couple of the members recognized him, but Brody
persuaded them not to blow his cover.
Attended CUNY Queens College in the Flushing section of Queens, New York.
Was engaged to Elsa Pataky, having been in a relationship with her since June 2006 after meeting on the set of Manolete (2008) (April 2008-May 2009).
Fought hard to convince producer Robert Rodriguez and director Nimród Antal that he was a good choice for the lead role of "Royce" in Predators (2010).
Put on 25 pounds of muscle for the role of Royce in Predators (2010).
He attended a charity auction in November 2011 for Artists for Peace & Justice, which was offering "Tea with Gerard Butler"
as a bidding item; it was a chance to meet and chat with Butler.
Brody's $15,000 bid was the winner. On a whim, Brody offered to host
"Champagne with Adrien Brody" as a last-minute addition to the auction,
if it could take place later that day; he had a bottle available.
Brody's offer was accepted, and it earned an additional $17,000 for the
charity.
Attended the 2008 Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France on May 19th. [May 2008]
Attended the Elle Magazine 20th Anniversary Party in Valenica, Spain on October 20th. [October 2006]
Attended the Hugo Boss: Paris Fashion Week Menswear in Paris, France on June 25th. [June 2009]
Attended the 2006 MTV European Music Awards in Copenhagen, Denmark on November 2nd. [November 2006]
Attended the CatHouse grand opening at the Luxor Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on Dec. 29th. [December 2007]
Haikou, China: Attended the World Celebrity Pro-Am golf tournament. [October 2012]
Attended the 2009 Moscow Film Festival in Moscow, Russia on June 19th. [June 2009]
Attended the BOSS Orange Fashion Party: Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Berlin in Berlin, Germany on July 2nd. [July 2009]
Attended the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Onatrio, Canada on Sept. 9th. [September 2008]
Attended the 64th Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy on September 3rd. [September 2007]
He, Marisa Tomei, Russell Crowe and Marcia Gay Harden
are the only actors to win an Oscar without being awarded for the same
performance in none of its predecessor awards (Golden Globe, Critics
Choice Awards, SAG and BAFTA). Marisa Tomei and Marcia Gay Harden were
not even nominated for those awards for their performances in Mi primo Vinny (1992) and Pollock. La vida de un creador (2000), and Crowe's only award for Gladiator (2000) before the Oscar was the Critics Choice award.
He and Marion Cotillard are the only actors to win both a César and an Oscar for the same performance. Brody won both awards in 2003 for El pianista (2002) and Cotillard won in 2008 for La vida en rosa (Edith Piaf) (2007).
Personal Quotes
[Referring to his portrayal of Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman who survived the Holocaust, in El pianista
(2002)] It made me have a much greater understanding of loss, of
loneliness, and the level of intense tragedy that so many people have
experienced in this world, I take a lot less for granted. It's really
valuable to gain that, especially at a young age.
[on his role as the village idiot in El bosque
(2004)] It just felt like it was the unconventional choice. It was the
kind of role that I would have taken prior to the Academy Awards. A lot
of actors tend to wait for the perfect role. And that perfect role may
never come. I don't want to start changing the way that I view things
and become precious.
I was a wild, mischievous kid and I had tremendous imagination.
Any experience I had, I'd try to reenact it. I always had an actor
within me.
I think to be a well-rounded person, you have to experience good
and bad, wonderful moments and pain. You need to meet people who have no
exposure to kindness, who lack any opportunity and have no way
out--like the homeless, the mentally ill--and you've got to learn
empathy for them.
[on working on Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005)] I'm running around in front of a green screen screaming, "Where's the monkey? Where's the monkey?"
[on his role as Jack in Amar al límite
(2001)] I identified a lot with that character, I was exorcising the
demons that I'd has as a hoody kid in Queens, where you hold your own or
wither. So my character out-hustled the hustle.
My dad told me, "It takes fifteen years to be an overnight success", and it took me seventeen and a half years.
[on giving up material possessions and shedding 30 pounds for El pianista (2002)] There's no comparison to what Wladyslaw Szpilman
went through and the suffering that people during the Holocaust, or
nations afflicted with famine are going through, but it gave me a much
greater understanding of that. And you can't act that. I take the work
very seriously.
[on working with Roman Polanski on El pianista
(2002)] We were shooting a scene and he's like, "Adrien, I need you to
climb up the building. And I want you to go up to the roof and I want
you to climb out the window. And I want you to hang and they're going to
shoot at you. And I want you to slide off the building and hold on to
the gutter and then you're going to fall". And I said, "Has anyone tried
this before?" And he said, "Hollywood actors! Come on, I show you, I
show you." And he runs up the building, sixty-eight years old, climbs
out the window and hangs from the window, slides down the roof of the
building, hangs from the gutter, jumps down to the ground, brushes
himself off and he said, "There, somebody did it. Now do it".
[on proclaiming himself a magician at age five] I was an amazing
Adrien. I may still be at times. In retrospect, I see that was my first
performance. And you know a lot about magic is not just the trick, it's
the pattern. It's the delivery. It's the presentation. And this is why
you're going to be amazed.
[on Roman Polanski]
He wasn't easy on me, ever. He wasn't particularly kind to me, but he
wasn't -- he was never disrespectful regarding the work. I grew. I'm
stronger, I'm tougher from Roman. I'm tougher. I'm not harder, I'm just
tougher.
[on winning the Academy Award for Best Actor] It's interesting,
winning an Academy Award as a young man . . . life-changing, but I'm
just me within that. It's been very helpful for my career, but I'm
trying to stay on the path I was on before.
[on being strapped in a straitjacket and thrown in a body drawer for The jacket
(2005)] Those situations are very challenging, emotionally and
psychologically, to find yourself in a confined space like that. I
thought it would be interesting. It was very painful and I kind of
encouraged that pain. I spent time in an isolation tank -- lots of time
-- and I would let them leave me in the jacket and leave me in the
drawer for a while.
I'm not the kind of person to deliberately behave differently for
the sake of behaving differently, but there are certain things that you
have to kind of be true to and sacrifice your own freedom at that time
to do.
I've never taken a role for money. I felt it would be wrong - not necessarily a career decision - just wrong.
[on playing hero Jack Driscoll in Peter Jackson's King Kong
(2005)] I've always wanted to do something like King Kong. It's a
phenomenal role that any actor would kill for. I've been looking for
this kind of iconic leading man guy for years, but they are hard to
find.
They compare me to Al Pacino
-- I admire and appreciate the comparison. But, really, I'd rather be
thought of as "the first Adrien Brody," than "the new Al Pacino".
[on growing up in Queens, New York] I hung out with troublemakers.
I was a sensitive teenage boy, who luckily had kind parents, but I
lived in a not-so-kind neighborhood. In order to deal with it, I
toughened up and became more of a hoodier kid. It was never malicious,
that's not in my nature, but I was much harder than I am today. Had I
not had parents I could talk to, it would have got out of hand.
[on being enrolled into acting classes by his parents when he was a
teen] I liked it instantly. Aside from being one of only three boys in a
class of 20 girls - the odds were fantastic - I felt I was good at it,
it was creative. I had been encouraged by my parents to be outspoken and
free, so I was pretty much disinhibited. It was a good outlet for me.
[on his role in La delgada línea roja
(1998) being cut down from lead character to bit part] It kind of felt
like a soldier coming home after giving his soul and then not being
appreciated. At 24, it sucked; it was embarrassing because I would
assume if an actor was cut out of a movie of that nature with a director
of that caliber it must be as a result of a flaw in the actor's work.
Not as a result of a director changing his vision. But you pick yourself
up. The advantage of being a bigger name is it costs them too much
money to cut you out of a movie.
I suppose that means I'm not easy to define. But that's good, isn't it? In this town they love to define you to death.
Everything is harder than you would imagine, including success.
You might think it's lovely to be famous, but if your process is to
constantly observe people and human behavior and yet everyone is
observing you all the time, how do you do what you do? I never saw that
coming as an obstacle.
I don't think anyone saw me as the heroic leading man before I won an Oscar. I'm not sure anyone does now, outside of Peter Jackson.
I would have loved to make a lot of money as an actor. I would
have loved to not live in a shitty little apartment for most of the time
I've been in Los Angeles. I would have loved to have nice things and
bought new cars, but it's painful for me to do a bad role. Personally
painful. You feel like you're lying to everybody. It's just not worth
it.
I grew up without a lot of money and my parents grew up with far less money. And that's kept me in line. Really in line.
You get a little fame as an actor and suddenly people ask your
opinion on world politics and why we're in Iraq. Why is my opinion any
more valid than anyone else's? My opinion doesn't count more just
because I'm famous now.
[Upon being described as "a young Al Pacino"] I'm a young Adrien Brody, thanks.
[on motorcycling in India] I almost died. I jammed on the brakes,
skidded and nearly slammed into it. I was laughing, thinking, "This is
the way I'll be remembered: rear-ending a cow".
What guides me is to do work that's more avant-garde - things that
I think are special. You can easily become a celebrity and get caught
up in all that blur. I just want to work and surprise myself.
[In 2010, regarding fame after El pianista
(2002)] Even though I've had plenty of ups and downs, I didn't have the
maturity and the sense of self-awareness to have gotten me through it
as positively as I did if I had been in my early twenties.
A five-year
difference would have had a big impact. Because you have a tremendous
amount of attention: All the girls think you're beautiful all of a
sudden, and people wanna be your friends - and they genuinely wanna be
your friend. I don't feel that it's insincere. You now emanate some sort
of light that you didn't have before, and it's created, but it's too
much. Even tons of positive energy on one person is still energy, and
that does something. There're repercussions for that kind of energy.
It's a lot of forces coming right at you, and that's tumultuous for any
young person.
[In 2010, on his career] I work when I want to work. I don't feel
the pressure that I used to feel as an actor that I may not have an
opportunity to work, that I will not find gainful employment with
something that inspires me, that I might have to take work just for the
sake of working. I feel honestly so fortunate to have that.
[In 2010, on acting] I was always an actor - not in a way that
people might presume actors to be, 'cause I believe there's a
presumption that they like attention all the time, and that they're very
outgoing. Acting is perhaps misunderstood. I'm a relatively shy person.
I often liken it to my mother's approach as an artist, because she's a
photographer and she sees so much in a situation that very few people
might see. She'll see so much happening beneath the surface with an
imagery that says something else. And I have a fascination with a
similar kind of thing where I see details in people's mannerisms, or
beneath something that's said to someone else.
All these things that lay
beneath the surface and things that are really special and that make us
all so unique. Growing up in New York, I encountered so many different
kinds of people everywhere. I went to the School of Performing Arts, but
I feel like my real acting training came from going to and from school
on four different trains each way, because of how many human beings I've
encountered, between homeless people and immigrant workers and shark
businessmen and every kind of human being - every kind of human being
every other step. My natural fascination was that I gravitated toward
their mannerisms - not to use as an actor, just because I'm curious, I
guess. And rather than capture the image with photography, I feel like I
capture it somehow and remember details very specifically, and I retain
things very easily and evoke them later.
[In 2010, on acting] An actor has a responsibility [to be]
connected and present and able to be very malleable and exist in a space
that isn't his or her own on set, and when they're working. I'm not
able to fully engage with you when I'm working on a set. I couldn't do
an interview justice because it's impossible for me to separate from
myself, and then to engage as myself, and then go back to [that
character]. So then my producer who needs that interview might say, "Oh,
he's being pretentious." But it's detrimental to my process of being
truthful [to the character], nothing more. Sometimes I am very
gregarious and outgoing, and sometimes I'm not. I'm relatively
introverted, and I'll stay by myself; but they'll misinterpret what that
is.
[in 2010] The reality is that, for me, acting is somewhat of a
painful process. A beautiful process, but a painful one. The more I have
to do battle to find truth, the more painful it is if I don't, because
film is permanent. So it's important the work I choose is something I
can have that confidence in. Otherwise, a movie becomes a permanent
reminder of a mistake you made.
[i 2010, on losing or gaining weight for a role] It's exciting
when you physically change, when you change your body chemistry and you
feel a transformation, it helps you feel a connection to the character.
You feel different from yourself. It's another level of involvement.
[in 2010, on adding muscle for Predators
(2010)] Putting on weight obviously is more enjoyable, though I was
trying to put on lean muscle. So they're both very strict diets. But one
diet builds confidence and the other strips it away. The diets are
similar, but with volumes more food when you're building muscle. I have a
fast metabolism so I had to gain mass and then shred it. I started with
heavy weights to put on size; then I did higher repetitions with
smaller weights to give the muscles definition. No carbs and I did a
workout with more cardio.
[on his first role in Home at Last
(1988), when he was 14] I was in high school and I went off to Nebraska
by myself and I loved it. I was playing an orphan from the 1800s and I
went wild. I hung out with the wranglers' sons and was riding horses and
chewing tobacco and having amazing experiences. I remember when it was
over, the director kiddingly said that they were going to turn it into a
series. I was ready, I didn't want the experience to end.
[in 2010, on doing a film for the paycheck] Everybody has a price,
I'm sure. Often times the jobs you'll be well-compensated for are that
way for a reason. The roles that speak to you usually don't have
resounding success, or even compensate you fairly. There is a balance
you try to strike. Really, if I wasn't an actor, I don't know what the
alternative would be. I'm glad I don't have to face that.
[on El profesor
(2011)] That's a movie that we all made for the right reasons and no
one saw. That is upsetting. It was a wonderful role, and in playing that
character it made me think a lot about our children's future and how
frightening it is, and what they're up against.
Salary
| The Village (2004) | $2.750.000 |
| King Kong (2005) | $10.000.000 |
| Giallo (2009) | $1.500.000 |
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