Biography

Adrien Brody

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Adrien Nicholas Brody was born in Woodhaven, Queens, New York, the only child of retired history professor Elliot Brody and Hungarian-born photographer Sylvia Plachy. He accompanied his mother on assignments for the Village Voice, and credits her with making him feel comfortable in front of the camera. Adrien attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts in New York.

Despite a strong performance in The Thin Red Line (1998), time constraints forced the director to edit out much of Adrien's part. In spite of his later work with Spike Lee and Barry Levinson, he never became the star many expected he would become until Roman Polanski called on him to play a celebrated Jewish pianist in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. He pulled off a brilliant performance in The Pianist (2002), drawing on the heritage and rare dialect of his Polish-born grandmother, as well as his father, who lost family members during the Holocaust, and his mother, who fled Communist Hungary as a child during the 1956 uprising against the Soviet Union.
- IMDb mini biography by: Red Hawk Management

Performed magic shows at children's birthdays as a child as the Amazing Adrien.
He attended a charity auction in November 2011 for Artists for Peace & Justice, which was offering "Tea with Gerard Butler" as a bidding item; it was a chance to meet and chat with Butler. Brody's $15,000 bid was the winner. On a whim, Brody offered to host "Champagne with Adrien Brody" as a last-minute addition to the auction, if it could take place later that day; he had a bottle available. Brody's offer was accepted, and it earned an additional $17,000 for the charity.
Is one of only two American actors to win a César, the French equivalent to the Oscar. The other one is Kristen Stewart.
In 2003, at the age of 29, he replaced Richard Dreyfuss as the youngest actor ever to win the Best Actor Academy Award, for his role in The Pianist (2002).
In 1992, he 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.

[on his portrayal of Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman who survived the Holocaust, in The Pianist (2002)] It made me have a much greater understanding of loss, of loneliness, and the level of intense tragedy that so many people have experienced in this world, I take a lot less for granted. It's really valuable to gain that, especially at a young age.
[on his role as the village idiot in The Village (2004)] It just felt like it was the unconventional choice. It was the kind of role that I would have taken prior to the Academy Awards. A lot of actors tend to wait for the perfect role. And that perfect role may never come. I don't want to start changing the way that I view things and become precious.
I was a wild, mischievous kid and I had tremendous imagination. Any experience I had, I'd try to reenact it. I always had an actor within me.
I think to be a well-rounded person, you have to experience good and bad, wonderful moments and pain. You need to meet people who have no exposure to kindness, who lack any opportunity and have no way out--like the homeless, the mentally ill--and you've got to learn empathy for them.
[on working on Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005)] I'm running around in front of a green screen screaming, "Where's the monkey? Where's the monkey?"