Adrien Brody Biography / Pictures

Adrien Brody (born April 14, 1973) is an American actor and film producer. Adrien Brody received widespread recognition and subsequent acclaim after starring in Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002). Adrien Brody is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, at 29 years old.

Biography

Adrien 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 Catholic mother was born in Budapest, Hungary, the daughter of a Catholic Hungarian aristocrat father and a Czech Jewish mother. As a child, Adrien performed magic shows at children's birthday parties as "The Amazing Adrien". Adrien Brody attended the Joseph Pulitzer Middle School (I.S.145) 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 kids with whom Adrien Brody associated. Adrien Brody attended summer camp at Long Lake Camp for the Arts in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. Adrien attended New York's Queens College from 1991 to 1993, majoring in Performance Art, but returned to acting before graduation.

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

Taking acting classes as a youth, by age thirteen, Adrien Brody had done an Off Broadway play and a PBS-TV-movie. Adrien 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. Adrien Brody received widespread recognition when Adrien Brody was cast as the lead in Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002). To prepare for the role, Adrien 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. Adrien Brody also won a César Award for his performance. Throughout his career, Adrien has been compared to Al Pacino for his unique looks and method acting. Adrien Brody is also widely known for giving presenter Halle Berry a back-breaking kiss before accepting his Best Actor Oscar, and as the spokesman for fashion brand Ermenegildo Zegna.

Adrien appeared on Saturday Night Live on May 10, 2003, his first TV work, but Adrien Brody 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 Adrien appeared in four very different movies. In Dummy (released in 2003 but originally shot in 2000, just prior to his work in The Pianist) Adrien Brody portrayed Steven Schoichet, a socially awkward aspiring ventriloquist in pursuit of a love interest (his employment counsellor). Adrien Brody 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. Adrien Brody 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, 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 critical and box office success; it grossed $550 million worldwide and is Brody's most successful movie to date in monetary terms. Additionally, Adrien played a detective in Hollywoodland. Adrien Brody has also appeared in Diet Coke and Schweppes commercials as well as Tori Amos' music video for "A Sorta Fairytale".

On January 5, 2006, Adrien confirmed speculation that Adrien Brody 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. decided instead to cast Heath Ledger in the role. Adrien Brody was also in talks with Paramount to play Spock in J. J. Abrams Star Trek XI, but it ultimately went to Zachary Quinto. Adrien starred with Mark Ruffalo in Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom as gentlemen con men released in May 2009. Also in 2009 was the box office release of 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, Adrien Brody 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, Adrien starred in a Stella Artois beer ad called “Crying Jean,” that premiered right after half-time of the 2011 Superbowl as part of Stella's "She Is a Thing of Beauty” campaign.
He is also the star of the youtube sensation, Adrien Quest.