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Adrien Brody
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Adrien Brody | ||||||||||
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 Brody at Cannes Film Festival, 2002 |
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| Born | April 14, 1973 Woodhaven, Queens, New York, U.S. |
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Adrien Brody (born April 14, 1973) is an American actor. He received widespread recognition when he was cast as the lead in Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002). The role won him an Academy Award for Best Actor, the youngest actor ever to win the award.
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Brody was born in Woodhaven, Queens, New York, the son of Sylvia Plachy, a photojournalist, and Elliot Brody, a retired history professor and painter.[1] Brody's father is Jewish and his mother was born in Budapest, Hungary to a Catholic father and Jewish mother.[2][3] As a child, Brody performed magic shows at children's birthday parties as "The Amazing Adrien".[4] Brody attended 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 kids with whom he associated.
In 1992, Brody 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. An avid daredevil, he has broken his nose three times doing off-the-wall stunts.
Taking acting classes as a youth, by age thirteen, he had done an off-Broadway play and a PBS-TV-movie. 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, 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 the youngest actor ever to win the award. He also won a César Award for his performance, becoming the only American actor to win one. Throughout his career, Brody has been compared to Al Pacino for his unique looks and method acting. He is also widely known for giving presenter Halle Berry a back-breaking kiss after winning his Best Actor Oscar, and as the spokesman for fashion brand Ermenegildo Zegna.
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 has appeared in three very different movies. He played Noah Percy, a mentally disabled young man in the movie The Village by M. Night Shyamalan, shell-shocked war veteran Jack Starks in The Jacket, and writer Jack Driscoll in the 2005 King Kong remake. He also played a detective in Hollywoodland. He has also appeared in Diet Coke commercials and Tori Amos' music video for "A Sorta Fairytale".
On January 5, 2006, Brody confirmed speculation that he indeed was interested and very willing to play the role of The Joker in 2008's The Dark Knight. However, Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. eventually decided to cast Heath Ledger as The Joker.[5] He was also in talks with Paramount to play Spock in J.J. Abrams Star Trek XI, but it ultimately went to Zachary Quinto.[6][7] Brody has been confirmed to star as a con man in Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom, which is slated for a 2008 release date.[8]
Brody is currently dating Spanish actress Elsa Pataky.[9][10]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Home at Last | Billy | |
| 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 | |
| Jailbreakers | Skinny | ||
| 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 | ||
| 1999 | Oxygen | Harry | |
| Liberty Heights | Van Kurtzman | ||
| Summer of Sam | Richie | ||
| 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 | ||
| 2002 | Dummy | Steven | |
| The Pianist | Wladyslaw Szpilman | Academy Award for Best Actor, Golden Globe nomination, SAG Awards nomination | |
| 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 | Manuel Rodríguez Sánchez "Manolete" | ||
| The Darjeeling Limited | Peter | ||
| 2008 | The Brothers Bloom | ||
| 2009 | Splice |
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Denzel Washington for Training Day |
Academy Award for Best Actor 2002 for The Pianist |
Succeeded by Sean Penn for Mystic River |
- ^ http://www.filmreference.com/film/18/Adrien-Brody.html
- ^ Meyers, William. "Rescuing Beauty From History's Dark Corners", The New York Sun, 2005-01-27. Retrieved on 2006-12-13.
- ^ "The prime of Adrien Brody", Guardian Unlimited, 2006-11-12. Retrieved on 2006-12-13.
- ^ The Village Voice
- ^ http://www.batman-on-film.com/batmovienews.html
- ^ http://trekmovie.com/2007/02/26/casting-rumor-damon-brody-sinise-for-kirk-spock-mccoy/#more-536
- ^ <http://www.moviehole.net/news/20070725_zachary_quinto_is_spock.html
- ^ http://www.cinemafusion.com/index.php?/weblog/comments/brick_writer_and_directors_latest_flick/ Cinema Fusion
- ^ http://www.hellomagazine.ca/film/2007/09/04/adrien-brody-venice/
- ^ http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20159781,00.html