Biography

Bradley Grant Smith got his start on the stage 30 miles north of Chicago at Highland Park High School. His professional debut occurred in 1998, when he was just seventeen, as David in the Joseph Jefferson Award-winning production of David's Mother at the Apple Tree Theatre. Four years of study followed, where Smith earned his Bachelor's degree in Acting at the renowned Theatre School at DePaul University (formerly the Goodman School of Drama), which led to work with Steppenwolf Theatre, The Goodman Theatre, Writers Theatre, Jackalope Theatre, The Inconvenience, and others (mostly now defunct.)

In 2009, a side interest in songwriting grew into much more when his original song, 'Help Yourself"--recorded at home on garageband--was featured prominently in the Academy Award Nominated film, Up in the Air, starring George Clooney. The song resonated with viewers the world over and buzz was strong for the song's award season chances. After a blog post erroneously stated the song had been previously released on an album by Smith, however, Paramount Pictures pulled the song from contention--despite the fact that the song was unpublished-- as the Academy's draconian rules for Best Original Song demand that it be written specifically for the film.

In 2014, after meeting at a Backroom Shakespeare performance at an abandoned bank in Chicago, a prolific working relationship began with writer/director/producer Alex Thompson (Saint Frances, Rounding, Ghostlight, Mouse) with the latter helming four (4) separate music videos for Smith's second album (as Sad Brad Smith) "Magic." The videos include the songs "On the Beach" (starring frequent collaborator Austin Pendleton), "Take Me Home," "Magic," and "Yippie Yippi, Yippie Yippo."

Thompson would go on to produce and AD Smith's debut feature as writer/director, Our Father (2021), which was shot in 2015 for $40k, starring Baize Buzan, Allison Torem, Keith Kupferer, and Austin Pendleton. After a lengthy post-production process, in which Smith edited (as Adrien Joyce, in a wink to Five Easy Pieces) and scored the film himself, Our Father finally premiered at the 2021 South-by-Southwest film festival in Austin Texas, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Award for Narrative Feature.

In 2024 he appeared as Jim, the lawyer, in Thompson and Kelly O'Sullivan's Sundance hit, Ghostlight, for which he also composed the educational song, "That's Enough," sung by school children early in the film at a recital.
- IMDb mini biography by: Brynn Gold