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Overview

Adrien Brody (born April 14, 1973) is an American actor and producer. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring in Roman Polanski‘s The Pianist (2002), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at age 29, making him the youngest actor to win in that category. Brody is also the only male American actor to receive the Csar Award for Best Actor.

Other successful films that Brody has starred in are The Thin Red Line (1998), The Village (2004), King Kong (2005), and Predators (2010).

He is a frequent collaborator of Wes Anderson‘s and has starred in three of Anderson’s films, those being The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)all of which were major successes.

 

Early life

Brody was born in Woodhaven, Queens, New York, the son of Sylvia Plachy, a photographer, and Elliot Brody, a retired history professor and painter. Brody’s father is of Polish Jewish descent; Brody’s motherwho was raised as a Catholicwas born in Budapest, Hungary, the daughter of a Catholic Hungarian aristocrat father and a Czech Jewish mother. Brody was raised “without a strong connection” to Judaism or Catholicism.

As a child, Brody performed magic shows at children’s birthday parties as “The Amazing Adrien”. He attended the I.S. 145 Joseph Pulitzer Middle School and New York’s Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. His parents enrolled him in acting classes to distance him from the dangerous children with whom he associated. He attended summer camp at Long Lake Camp for the Arts in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. Brody attended Stony Brook University before transferring to Queens College for a semester.

Career

Taking acting classes as a child, by age thirteen he appeared in an Off-Broadway play and a PBS television film. After appearing in Bullet in 1996 with Tupac Shakur and Mickey Rourke, Brody hovered on the brink of stardom, receiving an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his role in the 1998 film Restaurant and later praise for his roles in Spike Lee‘s Summer of Sam and Terrence Malick‘s The Thin Red Line. He received widespread recognition when he was cast as the lead in Roman Polanski‘s The Pianist (2002). To prepare for the role, Brody withdrew for months, gave up his apartment and his car, broke up with his then-girlfriend, learned how to play Chopin on the piano, and lost 29 lbs (13 kg). The role won him an Academy Award for Best Actor, making him, at 29, the youngest actor ever to win the award, and to date the only winner under the age of 30. He also won a Csar Award for his performance.

Brody appeared on Saturday Night Live on May 10, 2003, his first TV work, controversially giving an improvised introduction while wearing faux dreadlocks for Jamaican reggae musical guest Sean Paul. Other TV appearances include NBC’s The Today Show and on MTV’s Punk’d after being tricked by Ashton Kutcher.

After The Pianist Brody appeared in four very different films. In Dummy (released in 2003, but originally shot in 2000, just prior to his work in The Pianist) he portrayed Steven Schoichet, a socially awkward aspiring ventriloquist in pursuit of a love interest (his employment counsellor). He learned ventriloquism and puppetry for the role (under the tutelage of actor/ventriloquist Alan Semok) convincingly enough to perform all of the voice stunts and puppet manipulation live on set in real time, with no subsequent post dubbing. He played Noah Percy, a mentally disabled young man, in the film The Village, by M. Night Shyamalan, shell-shocked war veteran Jack Starks in The Jacket, writer Jack Driscoll in the 2005 King Kong remake, and father-to-be Peter Whitman in The Darjeeling Limited by Wes Anderson. King Kong was both a critical and box office success; it grossed $550 million worldwide and is Brody’s most successful film to date in monetary terms. Additionally, Brody played a detective in Hollywoodland. He has also appeared in Diet Coke and Schweppes commercials as well as Tori Amos‘ music video for “A Sorta Fairytale“.

On January 5, 2006, Brody confirmed speculation that he was interested in playing the role of The Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight. However, Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. decided instead to cast Heath Ledger in the role. He was also in talks with Paramount to play Spock in J. J. Abrams Star Trek XI, but it ultimately went to Zachary Quinto. In 2009, he starred in Splice, a science fiction film written and directed by Vincenzo Natali. Originally a Sundance film, Splice was adopted by Dark Castle Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros. Most recently, he played the star role of Royce in Predators (a sequel to the original Predator), directed by Nimrd Antal and produced by Robert Rodriguez.

In 2011, Brody starred in a Stella Artois beer ad called “Crying Jean” that premiered right after half-time of the Super Bowl XLV as part of Stella’s “She Is a Thing of Beauty campaign. He appeared in Woody Allen‘s 2011 Academy Award-winning comedy Midnight in Paris as Salvador Dal. On January 16, 2012, Brody made his debut as a runway model for Prada Men Fall/Winter 2012 show.

In 2014, Brody collaborated again with Wes Anderson in the Academy Award-winning The Grand Budapest Hotel, where he played Dmitri. The following year, he starred as Tiberius in the Chinese film Dragon Blade, which grossed $54.8 million in its opening week in China.

In 2017, it was announced he would join the cast of the fourth season of the BBC crime drama Peaky Blinders.

On August 4, 2017, he received the Leopard Club Award at the Locarno Festival. The Leopard Club Award pays homage to a major film personality whose work has made a lasting impact on the collective imagination.

Personal life

In 1992, Brody was seriously hurt in a motorcycle accident in which he flew over a car and crashed head-first into a crosswalk. He spent months recuperating. He has broken his nose three times doing stunts; the most recent was during the filming of Summer of Sam.

Brody began dating Spanish actress Elsa Pataky in 2006. For Pataky’s 31st birthday in July 2007, Brody purchased her a 19th-century farm in Central New York state that was remodeled to look like a castle. Brody and Pataky were featured at their New York home in a 35-page spread for HELLO! magazine in October 2008. The pair broke up in 2009. Brody has been dating model Lara Lieto since 2013.

In 2010, Brody sued the Giallo filmmakers, alleging that they failed to pay his full salary.

Filmography

Film

Year Title Role Notes
1989 New York Stories Mel
1991 The Boy Who Cried Bitch Eddie
1993 King of the Hill Lester Silverstone
1994 Angels in the Outfield Danny Hemmerling
1996 Ten Benny Ray Diglovanni
1996 Solo Dr. Bill Stewart
1996 Bullet Ruby Stein
1997 The Last Time I Committed Suicide Ben
1997 Six Ways to Sunday Arnie Finklestein
1997 The Undertaker’s Wedding Mario Bellini
1998 The Thin Red Line Cpl. Geoffrey Fife
1998 Restaurant Chris Calloway NominatedIndependent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead
1999 Oxygen Harry Houdini
1999 Liberty Heights Van Kurtzman
1999 Summer of Sam Richie Tringale
2000 Bread and Roses Sam Shapiro
2001 Harrison’s Flowers Kyle Morris
2001 The Affair of the Necklace Count Nicolas De La Motte
2001 Love the Hard Way Jack Grace
2002 Dummy Steven Schoichet
2002 The Pianist Wadysaw Szpilman Academy Award for Best Actor
Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
Csar Award for Best Actor
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
NominatedBAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
NominatedChicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
NominatedGolden Globe Award for Best Actor Motion Picture Drama
NominatedDallasFort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
NominatedEuropean Film Award for Best Actor
NominatedOnline Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor
NominatedPolish Academy Award for Best Actor
NominatedRussian Guild of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Actor
NominatedScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
NominatedVancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
2003 The Singing Detective First Hood
2004 The Village Noah Percy
2005 The Jacket Jack Starks
2005 King Kong Jack Driscoll
2006 Hollywoodland Louis Simo Also additional cinematographer
2007 The Tehuacan Project Narrator Documentary
2007 Manolete Manuel “Manolete” Laureano Rodrguez Snchez
2007 The Darjeeling Limited Peter Whitman
2008 The Brothers Bloom Bloom
2008 Cadillac Records Leonard Chess Black Reel Award for Outstanding Ensemble
2009 Splice Clive Nicoli
2009 Giallo Inspector Enzo Lavia Also producer
2009 Fantastic Mr. Fox Rickity Voice
2010 High School Edward “Psycho Ed” Highbaugh
2010 The Experiment Travis Cacksmackberg
2010 Predators Royce
2011 Wrecked Man Also executive producer
2011 Midnight in Paris Salvador Dal NominatedAlliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best Ensemble Cast
NominatedPhoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Ensemble Acting
NominatedSan Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Performance by an Ensemble
NominatedScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2011 Detachment Henry Barthes Also executive producer
2012 Back to 1942 Theodore White
2013 Inappropriate Comedy Flirty Harry Also wrote additional dialogue
2013 Third Person Scott Lowry
2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel Dmitri Desgoffe und Taxis NominatedCritics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Acting Ensemble
NominatedScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2014 American Heist Frankie Kelly Also executive producer
2015 Dragon Blade Tiberius
2015 Backtrack Peter Bower
2015 Septembers of Shiraz Isaac Amin Also executive producer
2015 Manhattan Night Porter Wren Also producer
2015 Stone Barn Castle N/A Documentary; director, producer and composer
2017 Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Post-production

Television

Year Title Role Notes
1988 Home at Last Billy Television film
1988 Annie McGuire Lenny McGuire Episode: “Annie and the Brooklyn Bridge”
1994 Rebel Highway Skinny Episode: “Jailbreakers
1996 Bullet Hearts Chuckie Bragg Pilot
1999 Split Screen Harry Episode: “Waiting for Star Wars”
2003 Saturday Night Live Himself (host) Episode: “Adrien Brody/Sean Paul, Wayne Wonder”
2014 Houdini Harry Houdini 2 episodes
NominatedPrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie
NominatedScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
2015 Breakthrough Narrator Episode: “Decoding the Brain”
2016 Dice Himself Episode: “Ego”
2017 Peaky Blinders

Video games

Year Title Role
2005 Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie Jack Driscoll

Music videos

Year Title Role
2006 Fade to Red Tori’s lover
2010 Brodyquest Himself