Adrien Brody

Adrien Nicholas Brody (born April 14, 1973) is an American actor and visual artist.

Brody started his career in the early 1990s, taking roles in King of the Hill (1993), The Thin Red Line (1998), and Summer of Sam (1999). Brody won two Academy Awards for Best Actor for portraying the Polish pianist Władysław Szpilman in Roman Polanski's war drama The Pianist (2002) and the Hungarian brutalist architect László Tóth in Brady Corbet's period epic The Brutalist (2024); his first win, at age 29, made him the youngest winner in the category, and, to date, the only winner under the age of thirty. For his performance in The Pianist, he also won a César Award, and for his work inThe Brutalist, he also won the BAFTA Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor.

His other notable films include The Village (2004), King Kong (2005), Hollywoodland (2006), Cadillac Records (2008), Splice (2009), Predators (2010), Midnight in Paris (2011), and Blonde (2022). He has collaborated with filmmaker Wes Anderson numerous times acting in The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), The French Dispatch (2021), and Asteroid City (2023).

On television, Brody has played Luca Changretta in the fourth season of the BBC series Peaky Blinders (2017), and Pat Riley in the HBO sports drama series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (2022–2023). He earned nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie and Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series at the Primetime Emmy Awards for his respective roles as Harry Houdini in the History Channel miniseries Houdini (2014) and investor Josh Aaronson in the HBO series Succession (2021).

On stage, Brody made his London theatre debut in 2024 and Broadway debut in 2025 portraying death row inmate Nick Yarris in the Lindsey Ferrentino play The Fear of 13 (2024), garnering a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for the former.

Early life and education Adrien Nicholas Brody was born on April 14, 1973, in Woodhaven, Queens, New York City, the son of Sylvia Plachy, a photographer, and Elliot Brody, a retired history professor and painter. Brody's father is of Polish Jewish descent. Brody's mother was born in Budapest, Hungary, and emigrated to the U.S. from Austria in 1958, to which she had fled with her parents following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and having lost most of her relatives to the Holocaust; she was raised Catholic, and is the daughter of a Catholic Hungarian aristocrat father and a Czech Jewish mother. Brody has said he was raised "without a strong connection" to either Judaism or Christianity.

As a child, Brody performed magic shows at children's birthday parties as "The Amazing Adrien". He attended I.S. 145 Joseph Pulitzer Middle School and Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York. He attended summer camp at Long Lake Camp for the Arts in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. Brody attended Stony Brook University before transferring to Queens College for a semester.

Career 19892002: Beginnings and breakthrough Taking acting classes as a child, by age thirteen, Brody appeared in an Off-Broadway play and a PBS television film. His breakthrough came with a supporting role in Steven Soderbergh's King of the Hill (1993), a critically acclaimed drama often recognized as a pivotal moment in his early career, with both critics and Brody himself citing it as his big break. In 1996, he starred alongside Tupac Shakur and Mickey Rourke in Bullet. Brody hovered on the brink of stardom, earning an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his performance in the 1998 film Restaurant and receiving praise for his roles in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line and Spike Lee's Summer of Sam (1999).

Director Roman Polanski, impressed by Brody's work in Harrison's Flowers (2000), cast him in the lead role in The Pianist (2002). To prepare for the role, Brody withdrew from public life for months, gave up his apartment and his car, and took piano lessons for four hours a day until he could master passages from some of Chopin's finest works. The role also earned him Best Actor nominations at the BAFTA, Golden Globes, and SAG Awards; Brody did not win any of these prizes, making him one of few actors to win an Oscar and no major precursor awards for a performance.

20032013: Post-The Pianist work After The Pianist, Brody appeared in four distinctively different films. In Dummy (released in 2003, but originally shot in 2000, just prior to his work in The Pianist), he portrayed Steven Schoichet, a socially awkward aspiring ventriloquist in pursuit of a love interest (his employment counsellor, played by Vera Farmiga). He learned ventriloquism and puppetry for the role (under the tutelage of actor and 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. He played Noah Percy, a mentally disabled young man, in the film 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 a critical and box office success—it grossed $550 million worldwide, and is Brody's most successful film to date, financially. He reprised his role voicing Driscoll in the video game adaptation of the film. Additionally, Brody played a detective in Hollywoodland. He has also appeared in Diet Coke and Schweppes commercials, as well as Tori Amos' music video for "A Sorta Fairytale".

On January 5, 2006, Brody confirmed speculation that he was interested in playing the role of The Joker in 2008's The Dark Knight, and also met with director Christopher Nolan. However, Nolan and Warner Bros. decided instead to cast Heath Ledger in the role. He was also in talks with Paramount to play Spock in J. J. Abrams' Star Trek, but it ultimately went to Zachary Quinto. In 2009, he starred in 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. In 2010, he 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, Brody starred in a Stella Artois beer commercial called "Crying Jean" that premiered right after half-time of Super Bowl XLV as part of Stella's "She Is a Thing of Beauty" campaign. He appeared in Woody Allen's 2011 Academy Award–winning comedy, Midnight in Paris as Salvador Dalí. On January 16, 2012, Brody made his debut as a runway model for Prada Men Fall/Winter 2012 show.

2014present: Resurgence and expansion

In 2014, Brody collaborated again with Wes Anderson in the Academy Award–winning The Grand Budapest Hotel, where he played the villain Dmitri. He received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or in a Movie for portraying the title character in Houdini, a History Channel miniseries. The same year, Brody was cast as the title role of Lee Tamahori's action epic Emperor, about a young woman seeking revenge for the execution of her father by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, opposite Sophie Cookson. The movie was finished and screened at Cannes in 2017 but its release has been by legal challenges.

In 2015, he starred as Tiberius in the Chinese film Dragon Blade, which grossed $54.8 million in its opening week in China. He also received the Cinema Vanguard award at the San Diego Film Festival the same year. In 2017, it was announced that he would join the cast of the fourth season of the BBC crime drama Peaky Blinders. On August 4, 2017, he received the Leopard Club Award at the Locarno Festival. The Leopard Club Award pays homage to a major film personality whose work has made a lasting impact on the collective imagination. In 2019, Brody left Paradigm to sign with CAA Creative Artists Agency. In 2021, he received the Vanguard Award at SCAD's Savannah Film Festival.

In 2024, Brody starred in Brady Corbet's The Brutalist, replacing Joel Edgerton in the lead role and joining an ensemble cast consisting of Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Jonathan Hyde, Emma Laird, and Peter Polycarpou. Brody's performance in the film as the Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor László Tóth was critically acclaimed, with many critics praising his subtlety and stating that it was his finest performance since The Pianist. For his performance he won the Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Critics Choice Award.

Brody starred in a stage play, The Fear of 13, written by Lindsey Ferrentino, at the Donmar Warehouse in London in October–November 2024. The play is based on the true story of Nick Yarris, an exonerated death-row inmate from Pennsylvania. For his performance he was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor. He reprised the role in 2026 on Broadway acting alongside Tessa Thompson at the James Earl Jones Theatre.

Personal life In 1992, Brody was seriously injured in a motorcycle collision in which he was thrown over a car and crashed headfirst into a crosswalk. He spent months recuperating. He has broken his nose three times doing stunts, including during the filming of Summer of Sam. Brody lived in Los Angeles during his early career and now is based in Manhattan.

In 2009, he signed the Free Roman Polanski petition.

In 2010, the band Lemon Demon released the song "BRODYQUEST", which became popular online. Brody enjoyed the song, setting it as his ringtone at one point. He further described the song as "hilarious."

It was reported in 2024 that Brody suffers post-traumatic stress disorder from the extreme weight loss he endured for The Pianist in 2002.

In 2010, Brody sued makers of the film Giallo, alleging they failed to pay his full salary. In January 2011 it was reported that Brody had reached a settlement with the producers. He said, "I very much enjoyed the process of making Giallo and am happy that things have been resolved and that people can now enjoy seeing the film."

Romantic relationships Brody began dating Spanish actress and model Elsa Pataky in 2006. For her 31st birthday, in July 2007, he purchased for her an early 20th-century farm in central New York State, which had been designed to look like a castle. Brody and Pataky were featured at their New York home in a 35-page spread for Hello! magazine in October 2008. The pair broke up in 2009.

For six years, Brody was in a relationship with Russian model Lara Lieto, after meeting at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012.

In February 2020, it was reported that he was romantically involved with English fashion designer and actress Georgina Chapman, whom he began dating while she was still married to, but formally separated from, Harvey Weinstein.

Oscar kiss

At the 75th Academy Awards in 2003, Brody became the subject of significant attention while receiving his Best Actor Oscar for The Pianist when he passionately kissed the presenter, actress Halle Berry. The kiss was widely viewed as the 2003 Oscars' signature moment. While Berry was surprised, she has since said she was proud to be a part of his big moment, called the kiss "great" in the week after the ceremony, and had been waiting to recreate it throughout the years if they crossed paths at an awards show. The following year, as Brody presented Best Actress at the 76th Academy Awards, Brody joked about the kiss using breath spray before announcing Charlize Theron, who eventually kissed Brody on the way to the stage. When announcing the nominees for the 77th Academy Awards, Brody came on stage and jokingly leaned in to kiss Academy president Frank Pierson, which Pierson rejected.

In January 2025, Berry congratulated Brody on his Instagram for winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Brutalist. "Congratulations my friend. You are truly one of one!" On the 97th Academy Awards red carpet, Berry ran over and passionately kissed Brody in a reprise of the moment from twenty-two years before.

Acting credits +Key May Denote works that have not yet been released

Film

Year Title Role Notes 1989 New York Stories Mel Segment: "Life Without Zoe" 1991 The Boy Who Cried Bitch Eddie 1993 King of the Hill Lester Silverstone 1994 Angels in the Outfield Danny Hemmerling 1995 Ten Benny Ray DiGiovanni 1996 Bullet Ruby Stein Solo Dr. Bill Stewart 1997 The Last Time I Committed Suicide Ben The Undertaker's Wedding Mario Bellini Six Ways to Sunday Arnie Finklestein 1998 Restaurant Chris Calloway The Thin Red Line Cpl. Geoffrey Fife 1999 Summer of Sam Ritchie Tringale Oxygen Harry Houdini Liberty Heights Van Kurtzman 2000 Bread and Roses Sam Shapiro Harrison's Flowers Kyle Morris 2001 Love the Hard Way Jack Grace The Affair of the Necklace Count Nicolas De La Motte 2002 Dummy Steven Schoichet The Pianist Władysław Szpilman Academy Award for Best Actor 2003 The Singing Detective First Hood 2004 The Village Noah Percy 2005 The Jacket Jack Starks King Kong Jack Driscoll 2006 Hollywoodland Louis Simo Also additional cinematographer 2007 The Darjeeling Limited Peter Whitman 2008 Manolete Manolete The Brothers Bloom Bloom Cadillac Records Leonard Chess 2009 Giallo Inspector Enzo Avolfi Also producer Splice Clive Nicoli Fantastic Mr. Fox Rickity Voice 2010 High School Edward "Psycho Ed" Highbaugh Predators Royce The Experiment Travis Cacksmackberg Wrecked Man Also executive producer 2011 Detachment Henry Barthes Midnight in Paris Salvador Dalí 2012 Back to 1942 Theodore White 2013 Inappropriate Comedy Flirty Harry Also wrote additional dialogue Third Person Scott Lowry 2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel Dmitri Desgoffe und Taxis American Heist Frankie Kelly Also executive producer 2015 Dragon Blade Tiberius Stone Barn Castle Documentary; Director, producer and composer Backtrack Peter Bower Septembers of Shiraz Isaac Amin Also executive producer2016 Manhattan Night Porter Wren Also producer Come Together Ralph Short film 2017 Emperor Charles V Unreleased 2024The Brutalist László TóthAcademy Award for Best Actor Elliot

Television Year Title Role Notes 1988 Home at Last Billy Television film Annie McGuire Lenny McGuire Episode: "Annie and the Brooklyn Bridge" 1994 Rebel Highway Skinny Episode: "Jailbreakers" 1996 Bullet Hearts Chuckie Bragg Pilot 2003 Saturday Night Live Himself (host) Episode: "Adrien Brody/Sean Paul, Wayne Wonder" 2014 Houdini Harry Houdini Miniseries; 2 episodes 2015 Breakthrough Narrator Episode: "Decoding the Brain" 2016 Dice Himself Episode: "Ego" 2017 Peaky Blinders Luca Changretta 6 episodes2021 Chapelwaite Captain Charles Boone 10 episodes Succession Josh Aaronson 2 episodes 2022–2023 Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty Pat Riley 15 episodes 2023 Poker Face Sterling Frost Jr. 2 episodes

Theater

Video games

Music videos Year Title Role Notes 2002 "A Sorta Fairytale" Tori Amos's lover2023"Déjame Entrar"Rauw's friend

Awards and nominations