Adrien Brody Finds His Chill
October 19, 2021 9:02 PM   Subscribe

Nearly 20 years after winning an Oscar and staking his claim as one of his generation’s most serious actors, Adrien Brody is finding a glorious new gear. After the Oscar, every interaction with other people was somehow different. “It was as if a storm rolled in,” he says. “Everything started blowing away—the life I knew.” Don't change, people kept telling him. Don't change. So he didn't. But then they went off and changed. They talked to him differently. Friends wanted to go into business with him. Photographers wanted to take his picture. Directors wanted him for their movies. None of it quite felt right. “It feels like it was a decade of finding out who and where I was. A lot of living and losing and winning and losing,” he says.
posted by folklore724 (14 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 


I was surprised to read that he had turned down a role in The Lord of the Rings.
“They were casting Lord of the Rings, and I somehow didn't grasp it. I don't remember what part I would have been right for, but it was some hobbit-like character, surely. I was looking for something else. And I remember going to see Lord of the Rings in the theatre with an ex-girlfriend and she turned to me and said “you passed on Lord of the Rings?” I remember feeling so stupid!”
posted by fairmettle at 2:08 AM on October 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


Wait, Adrien Brody's got three arms?!
posted by chavenet at 3:31 AM on October 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


A lot of living and losing and winning and losing. Doesn't even mention the fake dreadlocks and Jamaican accent on SNL. Weird that GQ didn't ask him about any of that. He's a great actor, and I'll almost certainly enjoy his performance in The French Dispatch, but he seems like a yikes of a person.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:11 AM on October 20, 2021 [4 favorites]


I know it's nearly twenty years later but I'm still INCREDIBLY leery about Adrien Brody because of that time he non-consensually kissed Halle Berry at the Oscars; even at the time it made me super uncomfortable and I was much less conscious of a lot of the issues, especially how Black women's bodily autonomy is not respected, than I am now. It was a long time ago but as far as I can tell he's never apologized and I kind of look askance at anything that doesn't mention it. I'm not saying he can never be forgiven or rehabilitated, that's not really my call to make, but it doesn't seem like he's done anything to atone for or even acknowledge the harm caused by that action.
posted by an octopus IRL at 5:12 AM on October 20, 2021 [17 favorites]




I'm not a huge Anderson watcher, but I actually really like this actor.

I don't think he seems ambivalent or endorsing, his statements are neither negative or positive.

When McCarthy asked Brody about the criticism of actors who choose to work with artists who have faced such serious allegations, Brody resorted to common deflections, Refinery29 reported. He said, “I think life is very complicated” and, “People make mistakes in life.”

Brody defended Polanski by saying, “Polanski, for instance, had a very complicated and difficult life.” Brody also tried to minimize the accusations by comparing them to tabloid gossip.


“I choose not to indulge this kind of fodder,” Brody said. “I don’t even read about those things.”


No comment on Halle Berry surprises, aside of course, not ideal.
posted by firstdaffodils at 11:09 AM on October 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


(above) As a person who has said some of the same remarks: all of those are neutral or positive remarks intended for those people to heal. Additionally, he works in an insanely competitive industry, who knows who might attack or feel aggravated for other remarks. If everyone responded this way, it'd probably be a much nicer environment.

Sometimes it's best to say something kind to all parties and remain detached. Especially in such a potentially caustic social environment. Not necessarily defending, sometimes it's nice not to jump the gun and assume the worst.

I'd be more concerned about the HB surprise kiss or the Jamaican stint (ugh)
posted by firstdaffodils at 11:47 AM on October 20, 2021


Apologies for the mild derail, but if anyone else is bad at actor names and remembering who people are: Adrian Brody and Adam Brody are two different people. Adrian Brody was never on The O.C., and Adam Brody has never won an Oscar. Wow, was I confused until I actually clicked TFA.
posted by bowtiesarecool at 1:37 PM on October 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


Is it just me, or is there something weird about this passage?
Some of this is plain anatomy. He's got the ski-slope nose, and the wide, deep-set green eyes, and a pair of eyebrows tilted up in permanent expectation. He looks wry but also a little sad. [..] Brody comes by it all honestly.
I mean, how could you come by your nose dishonestly? I can't decide if this is just poor editing, or if it's a way of saying that Brody is Jewish without actually using the word 'Jewish'.
posted by verstegan at 2:49 PM on October 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


I think that's saying that it's not done with cosmetic surgery.
posted by inexorably_forward at 10:23 PM on October 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


can a person come by their nose ambivalently? asking for a friend
posted by elkevelvet at 7:52 AM on October 21, 2021


Community summarized my sense of this actor in one quip (S5E04).
posted by LooseFilter at 8:11 AM on October 21, 2021


Okay but if you DO pay attention to tabloid nonsense, you will remember the property he talks so wholesomely about renovating was part of a huge tabloid feature he participated in (before Elsa Pataky left him to marry Thor).

(I do still enjoy watching him onscreen! I just think most celebrities are not charming enough to be themselves in press runs and not disciplined enough to be whoever their publicists want them to be.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:12 AM on October 21, 2021


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