Adrien Brody Biography

Adrien Brody (born April 14, 1973) is an American actor and film 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. Brody is also the only American actor to receive the French César Award.

Early life

Brody was born in Woodhaven, Queens, New York, the son of Sylvia Plachy, a photojournalist, and Elliot Brody, a retired history professor and painter. Brody's father is of Polish Jewish descent; Brody's mother " who was raised as a Catholic " was 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, he 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 (famous as the inspiration for television's Fame). 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 the Stony Brook University before transferring to Queens College for a semester.

Career

Taking acting classes as a youth, by age thirteen, he appeared in an Off-Broadway play and a PBS television film. 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, was left by 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 César Award for his performance.

Brody appeared on Saturday Night Live on May 10, 2003, his first TV work, but he was banned from the show after giving an improvised introduction while wearing faux dreadlocks for Jamaican reggae musical guest Sean Paul (the show's producer, Lorne Michaels, is notorious for hating unscripted performances). However, the unscripted intro remains in reruns of the episode. 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". He was also in "Bullet" with Tupac Shakur and Mickey Rourke. This film was released in 1997.

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 2010, 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 Nimród Antal and produced by Robert Rodriguez.

In 2011, Brody starred in a Stella Artois beer ad called "Crying Beans[Heinz]," that premiered right after half-time of the Super Bowl XLV as part of Stella's "She Is a Thing of Beauty" campaign.

On January 16, 2012, Brody made his runway debut as a model for Prada Men Fall/Winter 2012 show. Also in January, he was named ambassador for the Gillette Fusion ProGuide Styler which the company began marketing the following month.

In December 2012, Brody attended the grand reopening of the Siam Center Shopping Mall in central Bangkok, Thailand during his tour of Angkor Wat.

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 castle in New York state. 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.

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
	Natural Born Killers	One of Gale's cameramen
1996	Nothing to Lose	Ray Diglovanni	aka Ten Benny
	Solo	Dr. Bill Stewart, Solo's Designer
	Bullet	Ruby
1997	The Last Time I Committed Suicide	Ben
	Six Ways to Sunday	Arnie Finklestein
1998	The Thin Red Line	Cpl. Fife
	The Undertaker's Wedding	Mario Bellini
	Restaurant	Chris Calloway	Nominated " Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Male
1999	Oxygen	Harry
	Liberty Heights	Van Kurtzman
	Summer of Sam	Richie Tringale
2000	Bread and Roses	Sam Shapiro
	Harrison's Flowers	Kyle Morris
2001	The Affair of the Necklace	Count Nicolas De La Motte
	Love the Hard Way	Jack Grace	VFAA Award for Best Actor
2002	Dummy	Stevens
	The Pianist	W"?adys"?aw Szpilman
2003	The Singing Detective	First Hood
2004	The Village	Noah Percy
2005	The Jacket	Jack Starks
	King Kong	Jack Driscoll
2006	Hollywoodland	Louis Simo
2007	The Tehuacan Project	Narrator
	Manolete (The Passion Within)	Manuel Rodríguez Sánchez "Manolete"
	The Darjeeling Limited	Peter Whitman
2008	The Brothers Bloom	Bloom
	Cadillac Records	Leonard Chess	Black Reel Award for Best Ensemble Cast
2009	Splice	Clive Nicoli
	Giallo	Inspector Enzo Lavia	Also producer
	Fantastic Mr. Fox	Rickity	Voice
2010	High School	Psycho Ed
	The Experiment	Travis
	A Matador's Mistress	Manolete
	Predators	Royce
2010	BrodyQuest	Himself	Popular YouTube Video
2011	Wrecked	Man	Also executive producer
	Midnight in Paris	Salvador Dalí	Nominated - Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best Ensemble Cast Nominated - Chlotrudis Award for Best Cast Nominated - Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Ensemble Acting Nominated - San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Performance by an Ensemble Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
	Detachment	Henry Barthes	Also executive producer
2012	Back to 1942	Theodore White
2013
	Third Person	Sean
	Motor City	N/A	Filming
2014	American Heist		Filming

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1988	Home at Last	Billy	TV movie
	Annie McGuire	Lenny McGuire	Episode: "Annie and the Brooklyn Bridge"
1994	Rebel Highway	Skinny	Episode: "Jailbreakers"
1996	Bullet Hearts	Chuckie Bragg	TV movie

Video games

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