Taking acting classes as a child, by age thirteen, Brody appeared in an Off-Broadway play and a PBS television film.[15] 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.[16] Director Roman Polanski had seen Brody's performance in Harrison's Flowers (2000), and decided to offer him the leading role in The Pianist (2002).[17] To prepare for the role, Brody withdrew for months, gave up his apartment and his car, and took piano lessons for four hours a day until he could master passages from some of Chopin's finest works.[15] At 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) tall, he lost 30 pounds (14 kg), dropping him to 130 lb (59 kg). The role won him an Academy Award for Best Actor, making him, at age twenty-nine, the youngest actor ever to win the award, and, to date, the only winner under the age of thirty. He also won a César Award for his performance.[18]
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, played by Vera Farmiga). 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, financially. He reprised his role voicing Driscoll in the video game adaptation of the film. 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".[19]
In 2011, Brody starred in a Stella Artois beer ad called "Crying Jean" that premiered right after half-time of 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 Dalí.[25] On January 16, 2012, Brody made his debut as a runway model for Prada Men Fall/Winter 2012 show.[26]
In 2014, Brody collaborated again with Wes Anderson in the Academy Award-winning The Grand Budapest Hotel, where he played Dmitri. He received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or in a Movie for portraying the title character in Houdini, a History miniseries. The same year, Brody was cast as the title role of Lee Tamahori's action epic Emperor, about a young woman seeking revenge for the execution of her father by Holy Roman EmperorCharles V,[27][28] opposite Sophie Cookson.[29] The movie was finished and screened at Cannes in 2017[30] but its release has been held up[update] by legal challenges.[31]
In 2017, it was announced that he would join the cast of the fourth season of the BBC crime drama Peaky Blinders.[34] On August 4, 2017, he received the Leopard Club Award at the Locarno Festival.[35] The Leopard Club Award pays homage to a major film personality whose work has made a lasting impact on the collective imagination.
In 1992, Brody was seriously hurt in a motorcycle collision in which he was thrown over a car and crashed head-first into a crosswalk.[42] He spent months recuperating. He has broken his nose three times doing stunts, including during the filming of Summer of Sam.[43]
Brody began dating Spanish actress and model Elsa Pataky in 2006. For Pataky's 31st birthday in July 2007, Brody purchased for 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.[44] The pair broke up in 2009.[45]
In 2010, Brody sued makers of the film Giallo, alleging they failed to pay his full salary.[46][47] In January 2011 it was reported that Brody had reached a settlement with the producers. Brody stated, "I very much enjoyed the process of making Giallo and am happy that things have been resolved and that people can now enjoy seeing the film."[48]
In February 2020, it was reported that he was in a relationship with English fashion designer and actress Georgina Chapman, whom he began dating while she was still married to but in a formal separation from Harvey Weinstein.[49]
Brody suffers from PTSD from the extreme weight loss he endured for The Pianist.[50]
At the 75th Academy Awards in 2003, Brody became the subject of controversy while receiving his Best Actor Oscar for The Pianist, when he forcibly and at great length kissed the presenter, actress Halle Berry.[a][52][53][54] (Speaking in 2008 with American Photo's David Schonauer, the actor revealed that the dramatic, bent-backward stance into which he forced Berry had drawn its inspiration from an old photograph depicting Brody's parents, similarly positioned.[55]) Stepping to the microphone, Brody glanced back and quipped, "I bet they didn't tell you that was in the gift bag."[56][53][52][57] Speaking backstage with reporters, he confided, "Well, if you ever have an excuse to do something like that, that's it. I took my shot."[58] Although Berry herself minimized the incident when questioned the following week by Entertainment Weekly's Daniel Fierman, citing her own experience as the previous year's Best Actress winner ("I understand being out of your head in that moment; I can totally relate"),[59] the actress has been steadfast in stating that this action was taken with no advance warning given, much less consent sought.[60][61][62][63][64][b]
Having since come to be widely viewed as the 2003 Oscars' signature moment,[51][66][64][68][69] Brody's "gift bag" acquisition inspired a number of televised parodies that year,[52] with arguably the most pertinent occurring two months after the fact, when the 2003 MTV Movie Awards featured a moment which, much like its predecessor, prominently featured Brody—this time as a presenter—and appears not to have been a scripted bit, but rather some measure of impromptu payback, dispensed by fellow presenter, Queen Latifah. Greeted in a manner clearly modeled on his own precedent, the "seemingly startled Brody wiped his lips with the back of his hand," at which point Latifah turned her attention to the audience, shouting "That's for you, Halle!"[70]
^In fact, when asked, more than 12 years later, about his memory of that moment, Brody informed Vanity Fair's Krista Smith, "That was one of the most memorable moments ever; you could say, 'Time slowed down'? That was that. [...] In fact, it must have, because by the time I got finished kissing her, and people kind of settled in, they were already flashing the sign to say, 'Get off the stage; your time is up.'"[51]
^By February 2019, in the wake of #MeToo, even USA Today was calling the moment "cringeworthy."[65][66] That same year, Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse noted that the then recently reported cases of sexual misconduct by Senator Al Franken would—given the largely positive reception accorded Brody's nationally televised act just 16 years before—have almost certainly been viewed simply as "boorish" just a few years earlier.[67]
References
^Robertson, Emma (February 2, 2022). "Adrien Brody". The Talks. Retrieved January 13, 2025.
^Weinraub, Bernard (December 7, 1998). "Woodhaven to Hollywood: Pivotal Point on the Road; Is the Busy Adrien Brody Headed for Stardom?". New York Times. p. E1. ProQuest109940179. His father took a leave from his teaching job and found an apartment in Beverly Hills, so Adrien could attend high school there. [...] But the show failed, and Adrien returned to New York to graduate from La Guardia High School. He enrolled at the State University of New York at Stony Brook for a year, but it was too far to travel to New York auditions, so he switched to Queens College. He dropped out after a semester to move to Los Angeles.
Fierman, Daniel (April 4, 2003). "Oscars 2003: The big night". Entertainment Weekly. pp. 20–22, 28, 23, 25–26, 30, 33–34. ProQuest219052162. Abstract: Fierman reports on the 75th annual Academy Awards. Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore received boos from the Kodak Theater audience after attacking the Bush administration during his acceptance speech. The movie "Chicago" won the Best Picture award, while actors Adrien Brody and Nicole Kidman received awards for a leading role in a film.
^Beckerman, Jim (September 8, 2023). "Absolute Don't-Miss Things to Do and Shows to See This Spring; Don't Miss (Continued from Page 1W)". Morristown Daily Record. pp. W1, W2. Retrieved January 11, 2025.
