Adrien Brody
Appearances
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
were similar, like Marcel Brauer, who has left a wonderful legacy of work.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
As an architect, but left in the mid-30s, fortunately. So I think the films obviously speak to this horrific time and speak to the power of art today and the beauty and the capacity for the human spirit to endure, and the power of the ability to create beauty and lightness amidst darkness, and to find purpose in art to transcend that darkness.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
And you don't have the words, you don't have the vocabulary or confidence to speak in another language. I can understand a fair amount of French, but I'm very reticent to start speaking, especially when I'm in France, because I'm just not confident with that. And the pressure of coming to a new land and trying to communicate and express yourself And in a way, it's very hard for many people.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
But yeah, I see what you're saying. I just respond to the circumstances as I can with the understanding of that character. A lot of the silence that exists or does not exist in a film is also up to the filmmaker and the editor. And the beauty of this film, and you can correct me if you feel differently, but in spite of its length, it does not feel long.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
And the beauty of its length is that you are afforded moments that feel very real and personal because you can sit with the characters and experience those moments. And they aren't truncated in an effort to keep a scene lively and edgy for the sake of pace. And that takes a very confident and brave filmmaker...
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
and one who understands the nuance of language and storytelling and trusts in his actors and gives them the space and honors those magical moments that can be created.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Well, I love Wes. He's such an amazing person and fantastic and unique filmmaker and... You know, we first met for The Darjeeling Limited, which I shot with Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman. The three of us portrayed brothers and our character's father had passed away and we take a trip throughout India together to reconnect and find our way through that trauma.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
It was such a beautiful life experience. We all traveled India together and we lived in the same house. I bought a motorcycle when I was there, and I lived there. I lived in Jodhpur for the most part and traveled around India. It's very, very special, and I'm so grateful for Wes for including me in his family right away.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
All the wonderful creative experiences he's enabled me to have and life experiences and all the many creative people and actors who I admire that I've developed friendships and greater connection with through just... dinners on his sets. Yeah, I heard that you guys... Yeah, he's just, he knows how to do something very inclusive, and I think it's really wonderful.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Yeah, it's quite demanding. It gives off this impression of everything being off the cuff and quirky and alive. But it requires such a precision, not only from the actors, but from the camera department, lighting shifts. He does a lot of practical effects. He'll have cameras coming on and off of a dolly, for instance. So that's very challenging to do smoothly. And that is essentially...
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Yes, it's a remarkable thing to find something that speaks to a struggle, a resiliency and a sense of something so intimate like my mother's journey of fleeing Hungary and my grandparents and having to leave everything behind and Those hardships that not only speak to me personally, but to so many from many different backgrounds.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Sanji, who's our, his master, Dali Grip, who has been with us and with him since we worked on Darjeeling together and is now part of, you know, his, his crew on everything, um, is, is really a master at his craft. And, um, so much is a dance between us and him enabling those shots to work.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
And he will literally have the complex task of coming off a dolly track and going on to a very smooth surface and then reconnecting to a new track and going along another set of rails.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Everyone's hoping that nobody else drops the ball because you have to just do it again and again until you're all in sync. And, you know, I know through experience what works for Wes and what doesn't. I know how not to veer from Wes. Certain things that are quite important to him. And certain actors are very good at that. And certain actors are less good at that specificity.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
And you're all working together in this moving master. And it has to be... It's very exacting. And I do remember a scene where I was up... At the end of the scene in the French Dispatch, Tilda Swinton and Lois Smith, who is a wonderful actress who was probably in her late 70s and her 80s, had this massive monologue. to deliver with tremendous precision, as well as Tilda.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
And then there were all these complex camera moves, and then it lands on me, and then I have this monologue to finish it. And it was such pressure to not ruin it when I knew that they had done something so perfect. So to be last up is a real... You better hit it home.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Oh, yeah. But, I mean, it's a team effort, and there is a need for everyone to lift everyone else up for it to work.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
I think my first professional job was 12 years old. Before acting, I started doing magic and I was, you could call it a professional job. I mean, I think I earned $50 to do a children's birthday party in its entirety. But I loved magic and I found that that
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
The storytelling that's involved, in addition to creating the illusion, was a gateway into an understanding of performance and precision in performance.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
And I just was in awe when I read the script and feeling how right I was for this role.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
in uh in performance and and um but i i found a love for acting at a very very young age and then was fortunate to work pretty consistently over the years i didn't have a big career for many years but i i was a working actor and i'm i have always been very grateful for that
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Yeah, I just joked about it last night. I said, you know, acting beats working for a living. And, you know... It is very hard work in all seriousness, but it is such a joy and it's always different. And I always had a very curious spirit and that curiosity of my childhood lives on in me. And, you know, I grew up in New York City. I grew up in Queens. I took the train all the time.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
I had to take four trains each way to go to drama school. I got accepted to performing arts. It was a public school, but it gave me a wonderful foundation.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Yes. I mean, it's not merely a public school, but it was a... It's a remarkable school, but it was a public high school, meaning I was, by being selected and making it into the drama department, I was given four acting classes a day within the public school system, which is remarkable and was very helpful for me. But along the way to get to school, I'd have to take the train.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Well, those stories are very intimate to me. You know, there's a very interesting parallel with... the character that I play, Laszlo Toth, who is this Hungarian architect who really finds purpose and how his work, even how the works of architects of that era were really informed by the traumas of post-war times.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
And I learned so much about character along those lines. Watching people. That train ride and this diverse city and, you know, some of those discoveries in those years informed choices I made even in the pianist years later of, you know, witnessing characteristics and... Watching people. You name it. Yes. Watching people.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
I was doing theater. I'd first done some work with Elizabeth Suedos at BAM, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and I'd gotten an off-Broadway play in the Lower East Side that I, you know, take the train in from after junior high school and go to work and try not to get jumped in the East Village. And then, you know, go to work each day. And, you know, I loved it. I really loved it. And at...
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Just turning 14, I had booked the lead role in a public television film. So I went off to Nebraska and shot a movie. Do you still have that movie? Yeah. Oh yeah, you could probably find it. It's called Home at Last. I'm quite my boy in it and it was wonderful. And that too, it spoke to a time in history.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
I played an orphan in the 1800s and at the time many orphaned children were being adopted and shipped off to the Midwest by families on farms and They were given a home and education and religion, but they were also, you know, cheap labor and they were put to work. And it spoke to that struggle and that time in history.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
And so even at a very young age, I was gravitating towards and being selected for roles that spoke to things that were of some relevance. And I'm really happy about that.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
It's a lovely, lovely question. And, you know, my parents are a unit. They've always stood together in embrace of me and in nurturing me. me and my individuality and not suppressing my individuality and my rambunctious nature as a child and my enthusiasm and curiosity of the world. And they've only enhanced that. And my mother's
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Work has been so influential on me as an artist and my, first of all, in me encountering acting is the result of her having an assignment to photograph the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, which... my education in performing arts where I started as a very young boy because she had seen an acting class.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
They had acting classes for children that were, she saw in me what all these kids were doing and she had that intuition. So even just encountering it came as a result of her photographic work. But then I'm also working son only son of a photographer so i am uh i am very much a focal point in front of the lens that came from an artist's eye and i also witnessed her imagery and her
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
her immortalization of my city and the world through that very beautiful, specific lens. since birth, whereas I grew up with film everywhere in my home.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
of that time and how that influenced the architecture to come and I feel like my mother as an artist and her beautiful sensitivity and empathy for others all of that is enhanced from her own struggles and her own consciousness of the struggles of others but she she shared so much along the years with me both stories of my grandparents and
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Negatives being hung from the showers and film canisters in the tub and the smell of fixative in the dark room smelling like home and my mother and film test prints on record racks all strewn around the floor in front of the landing in front of my
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
my bedroom and so since I could crawl I was seeing imagery everywhere and beautiful imagery and I think that made art and its accessibility very tangible and available.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Yes, I often see a very similar, and I don't know if it's something I've learned through my mother or something through osmosis or genetically, but I am very similar to my mother in a lot of ways creatively. And I love imagery and I have an eye. I don't have quite her eye for it, but I do...
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
I tend to retain a lot, both in a photographic memory and an emotional recall of things that is very much like my mother's. how she sees an image and captures it and catches that magic or incongruity in something that makes it so special. And I just don't carry a camera as much. And I really should, and I always say that I should, but I don't.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
But I do retain a lot and try to bring it to life within me in the roles that I play.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Oh, they've, they've seen the film and they're, they, both my parents have seen the film and my mother's very, very moved by it. And, um, It makes me so happy and proud to get to share this with them. They know how hard I have been working towards finding something like this and how patient I have been. And they, I think,
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
It speaks to so much of her own story and struggle that I am really profoundly grateful to be able to present to her.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Tanya, thank you very much. I enjoyed this conversation. I have to say I've really enjoyed hearing your voice. You enhance the experience, and I think to the listeners as well, so thank you.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
her having to say goodbye to her friends without, she was only told she was having to flee the day before they left. How old was she? She was 13 and she had to say goodbye to her best friend and went to her house and her friend said, okay, well, I'll see you later. And my mother didn't quite have a response and said, hopefully, or something along those lines where she knew what was coming.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
So those kind of moments are those big ones in our lives.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Yeah, it was also, she's done remarkably well, and she's a real incredible artist. Sylvia Plahi, I don't know if we've referenced her, but she is a... I'll meet people quite often in New York who say, oh, yeah, yeah, I know who you are, but your mom, she's the artist. And she's done such great, great things and has devoted her life to that.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
But the struggles for my grandfather, I think, were more... um, pronounced primarily with, uh, his, he had a very strong accent, not dissimilar to my characters. Um, I think it's, it's hard to be, uh, an outsider, you know, it's hard to be a foreigner, even though you attempt to assimilate and, and to fit in. And, um, that's very much a part of Laszlo's journey. And I got to, uh,
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
honor that struggle of his. And also the dialect and specific sounds and rhythm that he had and personality traits that I was able to reflect upon were really quite wonderful to give a layer of truth to this character.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Yes. I mean, I knew all the curse words from my childhood. I definitely knew them. And there are some in the film that were not scripted that I've added. So that was an added benefit. But even the English is such a specific sound and dialect that... It was very important to me that it rang true.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
We worked with a wonderful dialect coach, and we found men of the 50s, of that era, of when my grandfather had arrived. And it was a similar formality that was necessary, and I found some clues that were really very helpful to keying into that.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
I did, I did. He passed when I was quite young, but I loved him. My parents often see how similar I am to him and how he was to me.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Well, he had a lot of similar aspirations. I mean, he wanted to be an actor at one point, too. But he was a passionate and emotional person, which I am.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Um, only later, I guess I, you know, I had started acting at quite a young age, but he had already passed. And, um, we often would say how proud he would have been to see me along the way. I mean, it would be such a, a gift to be able to share this with my grandparents. I think it would just blow their mind. Um, has kind of given purpose to their sacrifice.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
And it's something that's not lost on me, that my own good fortune and the firm footing that I've been given through their hardships along the way is definitely something I honor daily. So to do this film, I feel really, it's quite wonderful.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
I had visited and actually we shot... Hungary is, and Budapest is a... film location destination. Part of the reasoning was that there are film labs there and Brady was using film and it's better than shipping it across borders from other locations that may have been, you know, less able to process all the dailies regularly. But also, you know, Yeah, there was a look and a feel.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
It was definitely helpful for me to be there. Also, our wonderful crew are all Hungarians, and I had a responsibility to sound good, not only to live up to their expectations, but to interact and hear them constantly was very helpful in keeping me grounded and tonally feeling connected to that era.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Depends what you mean by that. But yes, he slept in the same bed together. But I worked with it very – I had to learn how to be very close to it.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
You know, I only do what I feel is necessary to find a closeness and a sense of truth so that I can, you know, quote, act less, you know, and feel closer. honest in an interpretation. I can't portray a man who's starving if I don't understand hunger. I can't portray the physical shift of a man who's starved by not losing that weight. I can't understand classical music without knowing to play it.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
You name it. And fortunately, a lot of that work that I had done in an effort to honor Spielman and the pianist and really to honor one man's journey that represented the loss of six million and spoke to such a horrific time in our history gave me a great deal of insight and understanding in what Laszlo's past experiences were that he is just on the precipice of overcoming as he
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
arrives to the United States. And so while this movie is a vastly different story and a story about an immigrant's journey, it is also the journey of someone who's endured that. And it's quite remarkable how that has lived with me and given me greater insight years later in a role like this.
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Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
Well, they both reference this time that has changed the shape and face of this world indelibly. And they both reference how intolerance and oppression and anti-Semitism and forces that are ugly exist and have deprived us of so much beauty in this world. This movie, The Brutalist, is a fictional story.
Fresh Air
Adrien Brody Was Made For 'The Brutalist'
And the reason it's a fictional story is because when Brady and Mona were doing their research to try and write a film about a European architect who survived the Nazi occupation and carried on his work in America. there were none to be found because they'd all been killed. And then Brady and Mona had to find references of other wonderful creatives who...
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
Yes, it's a remarkable thing to find something that speaks to a struggle, a resiliency and a sense of something so intimate like my mother's journey of fleeing Hungary and my grandparents and having to leave everything behind and Those hardships that not only speak to me personally, but to so many from many different backgrounds.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
And I just was in awe when I read the script and feeling how right I was for this role.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
Well, those stories are very intimate to me. You know, there's a very interesting parallel with... The character that I play, Laszlo Toth, who is a Hungarian architect who really finds purpose and how his work, even how the works of architects of that era were really informed by the traumas of post-war times. of that time and how that influenced the architecture to come.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
And I feel like my mother as an artist and her beautiful sensitivity and empathy for others, all of that is enhanced from her own struggles and her own consciousness of the struggles of others. But she shared so much along the years with me, both stories of my grandparents and Her having to say goodbye to her friends without... She was only told she was having to flee the day before they left.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
How old was she? She was 13. And she had to say goodbye to her best friend and went to her house. And her friend said, okay, well, I'll see you later. And my mother didn't quite have a response and said hopefully or something along those lines where she knew what was coming but wasn't able to tell her friend.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
So those kind of moments are, those are big ones in our lives.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
Yeah, it was also, she's done remarkably well, and she's a real incredible artist. Sylvia Plahi, I don't know if we've referenced her, but she is a... I'll meet people quite often in New York who say, oh, yeah, yeah, I know who you are, but your mom, she's the artist. And she's done such great, great things and has devoted her life to that.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
But the struggles for my grandfather, I think, were more... um, pronounced primarily with, uh, his, he had a very strong accent, not dissimilar to my characters. Um, I think it's, it's hard to be, uh, an outsider, you know, it's hard to be a foreigner, even though you attempt to assimilate and, and to fit in. And, um, that's very much a part of Laszlo's journey. And I got to
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
honor that struggle of his and and also the dialect and specific sounds and uh rhythm that that he had and personality traits that i was able to reflect upon were really quite wonderful to to give a layer of truth to this character you had to learn hungarian is that right Yes, I mean, I knew all the curse words from my childhood.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
I definitely knew them, and there are some in the film that were not scripted that I've added, so that was an added benefit. But even the English is such a specific sound and dialect that it was very important to me that it rang true. We worked with a wonderful dialect coach, and we found men of the 50s, of that era, of...
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
When my grandfather had arrived and there was a similar formality that was necessary and I found some clues that were really very helpful to keying into that.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
I did, I did. He passed when I was quite young, but I loved him. My parents often see how similar I am to him and how he was to me. They point that out. They always kept him very close, yes.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
Well, he had a lot of similar aspirations. I mean, he wanted to be an actor at one point, too. But he was...
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
passionate and emotional person which i i am and um when did you find out he wanted to be an actor um only later i guess i you know i had started acting at quite a young age but he had already passed and um we often would say how proud he would have been to see me along the way i mean it would be such a a gift to be able to share this with my grandparents i think it would just blow their mind um
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
has kind of given purpose to their sacrifice. And it's something that's not lost on me, that my own good fortune and the firm footing that I've been given through their hardships along the way is definitely something I honor daily. So to do this film, I feel really, it's quite wonderful.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
I had visited and actually we shot... Hungary is, and Budapest is a... film location destination. Part of the reasoning was that there are film labs there and Brady was using film and it's better than shipping it across borders from other locations that may have been, you know, less able to process all the dailies regularly. But also, you know, Yeah, there was a look and a feel.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
It was definitely helpful for me to be there. Also, our wonderful crew are all Hungarians, and I had a responsibility to sound good, not only to live up to their expectations, but to interact and hear them constantly was very, very helpful in keeping me grounded and tonally feeling connected to that era.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
I think my first professional job was 12 years old. Before acting, I started doing magic and I was, you could call it a professional job. I mean, I think I earned $50 to do a children's birthday party in its entirety. But I loved magic and I've
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
I found that the storytelling that's involved in addition to creating the illusion was a gateway into an understanding of performance and precision in performance. But I found a love for acting at a very, very young age and then was fortunate to work pretty consistently over the years. I didn't have a big career for many years, but I
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
I was a working actor, and I have always been very grateful for that.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
Yeah, I just joked about it last night. I said, you know, acting beats working for a living. And it is very hard work in all seriousness, but it is such a joy and it's always different. And I always had a very curious spirit and that curiosity of my childhood lives on in me. And, you know, I grew up in New York City. I grew up in Queens. I took the train all the time.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
I had to take four trains each way to go to drama school. I got accepted to performing arts as a public school. But it gave me a wonderful foundation.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
Yes. I mean, it's not merely a public school, but it was a... It's a remarkable school, but it was a public high school, meaning I was, by being selected and making it into the drama department, I was given four acting classes a day within the public school system, which is remarkable and was very helpful for me. But along the way to get to school, I'd have to take the train.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
And I learned so much about character along those lines.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
That train ride and this diverse city and, you know, some of those discoveries in those years informed choices I made even in the pianist years later of, you know, witnessing characteristics and... Watching people. You name it. Yes. Watching people.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
I was doing theater. I'd first done some work with Elizabeth Suedos at BAM, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and I'd gotten an off-Broadway play in the Lower East Side. take the train in from after junior high school and go to work and try not to get jumped in the East Village. And then, you know, go to work each day. And, you know, I loved it. I really, I really loved it. And at five,
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
Just turning 14, I'd booked the lead role in a public television film. So I went off to Nebraska and shot a movie. Do you still have that movie? Oh yeah, you could probably find it. It's called Home at Last. I'm quite my boy in it. It was wonderful. And that too, it spoke to... A time in history, it was I played an orphan in the 1800s.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
And at the time, many orphan children were being adopted and shipped off to the Midwest by families on farms and They were given a home and education and religion, but they were also, you know, cheap labor and they were put to work. And it spoke to that struggle and that time in history.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
And so even at a very young age, I was gravitating towards and being selected for roles that spoke to things that were of some relevance. And I'm really happy about that.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
You know, my parents are a unit, you know, they've always stood together and embrace of me and in nurturing me and my my individuality and not suppressing my individuality and my rambunctious nature as a child and my enthusiasm and curiosity of the world. And they've only enhanced that. And my mother's work has been so influential on me as an artist.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
First of all, in me encountering acting is the result of her having an assignment to photograph the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, which preceded my education in performing arts, where I started as a very young boy because she had seen an acting class. They had acting classes for children that were, she saw in me what all these kids were doing and she had that intuition.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
So even just encountering it came as a result of her photographic work. But then I'm also the son, only son of a photographer. So I am very much a focal point in front of the lens that came from an artist's eye. And I also witnessed her imagery and her immortalization of my city and the world through that very beautiful specific lens since birth.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
And whereas I grew up with film everywhere in my home, negatives being hung from the showers and film canisters in the tub and the smell of fixative in the dark room smelling like home and my mother and film test prints on record racks all strewn around the floor in front of the landing in front of my bedroom. And so since I could crawl, I was seeing imagery everywhere and beautiful imagery.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Tilda Swinton / Adrien Brody
Tanya, thank you very much. I enjoyed this conversation.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
Is it the test? No, it is not. Nothing is of its own explanation. Is there a better description of a cube than that of its construction? There was a war on. And yet, it is my understanding that Many of the sites of my projects had survived. They remain there, still in the city. when the terrible recollections of what happened in Europe cease to humiliate us.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
I expect for them to serve instead as a political stimulus, sparking the upheavals that so frequently occur in the cycles of peoplehood.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
Depends what you mean by that. But yes, he slept in the same bed together. But I worked with it very – I had to learn how to be very close to it.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
You know, I only do what I feel is necessary to find a closeness and a sense of truth so that I can, you know, quote, act less, you know, and feel honest in an interpretation. I can't. portray a man who's starving if I don't understand hunger. I can't portray the physical shift of a man who's starved by not losing that weight. I can't understand classical music without knowing to play it.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
You name it. And fortunately, a lot of that work that I had done in an effort to honor Spielman and the pianist and really to honor one man's journey that represented the loss of six million and spoke to such a horrific time in our history gave me a great deal of insight and understanding in what Laszlo's past experiences were that he is just on the precipice of overcoming as he
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
arrives to the United States. And so while this movie is a vastly different story and a story about an immigrant's journey and it is also the journey of someone who's endured that and it's quite remarkable how that has lived with me and given me greater insight years later in a role like this.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
Well, they both reference this time that has changed the shape and face of this world indelibly. And they both reference how intolerance and oppression and anti-Semitism and forces that are ugly exist and have deprived us of so much beauty in this world. This movie, The Brutalist, is a fictional story.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
And the reason it's a fictional story is because when Brady and Mona were doing their research to try and write a film about a European architect who survived the Nazi occupation and carried on his work in America. there were none to be found because they'd all been killed.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
And then Brady and Mona had to find references of other wonderful creatives who were similar, like Marcel Brauer, who has left a wonderful legacy of work, you know.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
As an architect, but left in the mid-30s, fortunately. And so I think the films obviously speak to this horrific time and speak to the power of art and the beauty and the capacity for the human spirit to endure and the power of the ability to create. beauty and lightness amidst darkness and to find purpose in art to transcend that darkness.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
And you don't have the words, you don't have the vocabulary or confidence to speak in another language. I can understand a fair amount of French, but I'm very reticent to start speaking, especially when I'm in France, because I'm just not confident with that. And the pressure of coming to a new land and trying to communicate and express yourself in a way is very hard for many people.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
But yeah, I see what you're saying. A lot of the silence that exists or does not exist in a film is also up to the filmmaker and the editor. And the beauty of this film, and you can correct me if you feel differently, but in spite of its length, it does not feel long.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
And the beauty of its length is that you are afforded moments that feel very real and personal because you can sit with the characters and experience those moments and they aren't truncated in an effort to keep a scene lively and edgy for the sake of pace. And that takes a very confident and brave filmmaker
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
And one who understands the nuance of language and storytelling and trusts in his actors and gives them the space and honors those magical moments that can be created.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
I think my first professional job was 12 years old. You know, before acting, I started doing magic and I was, you could call it a professional job. I mean, I think I earned $50 to do a children's birthday party in its entirety. But I loved magic and I found that that
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
the storytelling that's involved in addition to creating the illusion was a gateway into an understanding of performance and precision in
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
in uh in performance and and um but i i found a love for acting at a very very young age and then was fortunate to work pretty consistently over the years i didn't have a big career for many years but i i was a working actor and i'm i have always been very grateful for that
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
Yeah, I just joked about it last night. I said, you know, acting beats working for a living. And, you know... It is very hard work in all seriousness, but it is such a joy and it's always different. And I always had a very curious spirit and that curiosity of my childhood lives on in me. And, you know, I grew up in New York City. I grew up in Queens. I took the train all the time.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
I had to take four trains each way to go to drama school. I got accepted to performing arts. It was a public school, but it gave me a wonderful foundation.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
I mean, it's not merely a public school, but it was a... It's a remarkable school, but it was a public high school, meaning I was, by being selected and making it into the drama department, I was given four acting classes a day within the public school system, which is remarkable and was very helpful for me. But along the way to get to school, I'd have to take the train.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
And I learned so much about character of, you know, witnessing characteristics and... Watching people. You name it.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
I was doing theater. I'd first done some work with Elizabeth Suedos at BAM, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and I'd gotten an off-Broadway play in the Lower East Side. take the train in from after junior high school and go to work and try not to get jumped in the East Village and then, you know, go to work each day. And, you know, I loved it. I really, I really loved it.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
Just turning 14, I had booked the lead role in a public television film, so I went off to Nebraska and shot a movie.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
It's a lovely, lovely question. And, you know, my parents are a unit. They've always stood together in embrace of me and in nurturing me. me and my individuality and not suppressing my individuality and my rambunctious nature as a child and my enthusiasm and curiosity of the world. And they've only enhanced that. And my mother's, Work has been so influential on me as an artist and my...
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
First of all, in me encountering acting is the result of her having an assignment to photograph the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, which preceded my education in performing arts, where I started as a very young boy, because she had seen an acting class, they had acting classes for children that were, she saw in me what all these kids were doing, and she had that intuition.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
So even just encountering it came as a result of her photographic work. But then I'm also the only son of a photographer. So I am very much a focal point in front of the lens that came from an artist's eye. And I also witnessed her imagery and her... Her immortalization of my city and the world through that very beautiful specific lens since birth.
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
And whereas I grew up with film everywhere in my home, negatives being hung from the showers and film canisters in the tub and the smell of...
Fresh Air
Jeremy Strong / Sebastian Stan / Adrien Brody
fixative in the dark room smelling like home and my mother and and film uh test prints on record racks all strewn around the floor in front of the landing in front of my my bedroom and so since i could crawl i was seeing imagery everywhere and beautiful imagery and i think that made art and its accessibility very tangible and available.
Global News Podcast
South Korea: police refuse to arrest impeached President
You know, I owe so much to my mother and my grandparents for their sacrifice. And although I do not know fully how to express all of the challenges that you have faced and experienced and the many people who have struggled immigrating to this country, I hope that this work stands to lift you up a bit and to give you a voice. And I'm so grateful. I will cherish this moment forever. Thank you.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
But man, it was one of those moments where this is a relative bottom in terms of hitting one in relation to being a little bit detached from being overwhelmed or just having your brain on fire. So I've got to I gotta deal with that. And I gotta get my bumper fixed. Did I mention my tour dates? Yeah, I got a lot of dates coming up. You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
I'm gonna be in Fort Collins, Colorado on the 17th of January in Boulder. On the 18th of January I'll be in Santa Barbara. On January 30th, San Luis Obispo. On the... 31. Januar, Monterey, Kalifornien, am 1. Februar. Dann habe ich Gigs in Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Texas, South Carolina, Illinois, Michigan.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Geh zu WTFpod.com für alle meine Dates und Links zu Tickets. Also, dieser Film, in dem Adrian Brody ist, den wir über andere Dinge sprechen, und seine Frau, The Brutalist, ist definitiv wert zu sehen. Es ist ein besonderer Film. Es ist ein großer Film. Es ist ein It has an epic feel. It was shot in a big format on film. It's a very surprising and powerful film. I'm a fan of Adrian's.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
I'm happy he came by. The Brutalist is now playing in theaters. This is Adrian and I talking one-on-one, alone, in this space that was once a garage. That was built in 1957. The house is older. But anyways, this is me talking to Adrian Brody.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
You know, I guess the trend is to build a TV studio and have several people in there operating things, making sure that people are situated properly and they have to make sure that they look all right. And I think it's kind of a deterrent to a type of intimate conversation. But, you know, what do I know other than this is what we do? This is the organic conversation. Audio only. Picture it.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Did you actually make some weapons before you did the thing? Any functional weapons that you did, that you made? I don't want to incriminate myself. I'm not insinuating that you have them.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
A lot of this stuff is just remnants from the old studio, which was a very sort of deeply cluttered garage that was basically the history of my life. So there was stuff everywhere.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Well, now it's upstairs in the office room, what was in the old garage. But I can't let go. What do you keep most with books?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
When you say layered, are we talking like schnabbeling?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Right, so do you kind of like paint the bags and stuff into the surface?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Like some early Jasper Johns-y kind of shit?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Feel it. Just take it in like that. You can kind of do other things and just sort of focus on the voice. There is something about it. There is something about the nature of audio that is very intimate. Und das ist einer der Gründe, warum wir es immer noch so machen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
I wonder what made him, I guess it was just money to decide to get into the forgery racket.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Yeah, well, Guns on the Lower East Side, I think that Burroughs was down there with shotguns and handguns. Yeah, he was, exactly.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Und sie haben alle einen eigenen Rekord in diesem drei Album-Set. Aber ja, es war einfach seine Stimme, die mich auch enttäuscht hat. Aber ich habe gewusst, dass sie ein bisschen Bits waren. Sure, sure. Wie das ganze Dr. Benway-Business mit dem, gib mir einen neuen Scalpel, Nurse.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Und für diejenigen, die es nicht wissen, ich bin in meinem Haus, in meinem sortierten konvertierten Garage, der neue, nicht der original, hier mit meinen eigenen Faders, niemand anderes im Studio mit mir, verbrannt von diesen Soundpanels, die ein Kind mir gemacht hat. A few pictures, a few guitars, some leftover bits and pieces from the original garage, which was cluttered with all kinds of shit.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Just the space. I don't know where this guy came from, this director. Ich weiß, dass er nicht viel gemacht hat, aber die Aufmerksamkeit, diese Art von cinematischen Raum zu schaffen, ist einfach so ein seltsames Ding, Mann. Und wenn du... Und wenn du da drüber gehst... Ich meine, wusste du, dass er das tun konnte?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Yeah, because you don't think, man, this is going to be riveting. You don't think an architect.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Well, I mean, but it's very interesting what it speaks to in terms of class, in terms of... The immigrant experience. The immigrant experience, how, you know, and the arts in general, but also antisemitism. That's right. You know, how the waspy aristocracy saw the bohemian sort of, and the envy there. Yeah. I mean, like it unfolds very slowly.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Never. Yeah. I read a biography of Rothko once, and it was crazy what those guys would do to pass. But when he was at wherever it was, Yale, I think, they weren't even letting Jews in, really. But I think there's some sort of parallel between his life, I mean, Rothko's like the best, right? Yeah, absolutely. But when you're preparing for this role, I mean, what are you doing?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Like, you know, because you were a research guy. And I didn't realize, I thought the guy was a real guy. Mm-hmm. But it must be based somewhat on the idea, because modernism in and of itself, and then at the very end, when you kind of, you know, there's an award presented to you or a tribute, you know, the interpretation of why your character created those spaces.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
And the way he, you know, he doesn't, you see him as an immigrant, not necessarily as a survivor. But it seems that in his family, the Holocaust looms large. Oh, yeah. Right?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
And it's just one-on-one here. I don't know, for me, it's very engaging and sort of honest stuff. for me, in terms of how we go about doing things with this show. And today I talked to Adrian Brody. He came over. It's a very odd thing, the way people come over here. And it always has been. I mean, now everyone's very adept to the podcast landscape and everybody kind of has a podcast.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Ich meine, es ist einfach so, dass es eine Langweiligkeit gibt, die die Intensität erhöht. Es ist eine Unterschiede zwischen einer Langweiligkeit, wo du denkst, oh, fuck, wann wird das enden? Und einer Langweiligkeit, die sich irgendwie löst und die Aufmerksamkeit behält.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Und dann erhöht es sich alles, du weißt, ich will nicht, es gibt keinen Weg, den Film zu spoilern, aber es gibt Teile des Films, die sehr überraschend sind. in a violent way, that I found that to be insanely jarring. Yeah, I think it's intentional. I mean, I did too.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
But you don't see it coming, because usually you think... But metaphorically, that serves to illustrate the dynamic between classes and wealth and judgment and that guy's own repression. Of course. Ah, Mann. Und ich habe nicht das Gefühl, dass die Zeit vorbei ist. Das ist großartig. Und es war ungefähr richtig für die Intermission. Du mussten atmen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
I've become a big fan of the IMAX. I hope they give people an opportunity to go to IMAX. I believe they will. Because, like, that's really, you know, IMAX as a device, I don't, whatever the technology, it doesn't matter to me. But that, to me, when you go to an IMAX, it feels like the movies we saw when we were kids. When it was one screen at one theater. And you go in.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Yeah, I felt the first time when my grandmothers took me, like, we're going to Radio City, and to see a movie that large, it was crazy.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
But this is like the second one. How many roles have you done that were kind of Holocaust-adjacent?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
When you did that movie, though, because I've been trying to talk about, well, I do jokes, but... But the capacity to even widen your sense of empathy to a place where it's big enough to really take in, you know, what fucking went on during that time, it's almost disabling.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
But there is still something interesting and disarming and I think genuine about coming over to a guy's house Sehen, wo er lebt. In der Bathroom hier. In der Garage. Vielleicht habe ich dir einen Kaffee oder etwas gemacht. It's still a very kind of personal environment. But Adrian came over.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
It's interesting, the range of Jews you've played. Because I forgot, I was going through this stuff, and I remember watching... You've played a lot of other characters, too. No, but very specific, like Leonard Chess. That's right, yeah. Because I watched that movie, I remember that movie, because I'm a big fan of that period. Yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
That's right. But all of these characters come from sort of similar Jewish experience.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
But you had the opportunity to time travel. We don't all get to do that. I mean, generationally speaking, you were like either immigrant or just post-immigrant.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
He's actually the youngest person to win the Oscar for Best Actor back in 2003 for his performance in The Pianist. He's been in movies like King Kong, Midnight in Paris and five Wes Anderson films, as well as a television series like Succession, Peaky Blinders and Winning Time. He's now in the new epic The Brutalist, which is out now. Pretty stunning movie.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Aber da, wo du dein Studio hattest, das war wie auf dem Weg. Ich meine, all diese Leute, die damals diese Gebäude gekauft haben. Oh Mann. Die noch leben.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
When I was in Astoria, I was amazed. I mean, block to block, it was like, where am I? And I would get off the train at two in the morning and there'd be a whole family shopping for vegetables. I'm like, are there no rules about putting kids to bed in other countries? No, there aren't. They probably worked nights and came home. I don't know.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
But it was always sort of kind of electric with a lot of international energy, which I found to be
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
There were all these Italian kids I grew up around like
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Es ist, als hätte jeder gesehen, wie ich in jedem Scorsese-Film aufgewachsen bin. Ich habe das Dokumentarium von David Chase und den Sopranos gesehen, als sie einen open casting call gemacht haben. Ich kann mich nicht erinnern, welcher es war. Und jeder italienische Typ in der fucking New Yorker Region kam rein und sie waren alle echte Leute. Nein, das sind sie. Yeah. They are.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Und was sagt ihr Arbeit in Bezug auf das, was Sie vorhin gesprochen haben, und den Ton davon, dass es etwas Verrücktes gab?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
A pretty kind of confounding premise and scope of a movie. I mean, the thing I had no idea came out of nowhere. Hopefully I'm going to get to talk to that director. I like talking to directors. I had Mike Lee in here a few days ago. You'll hear that on Thursday. Mike Lee, truly one of the greatest directors.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Es zeigt auch, dass es eine Art ist, Fotografie als Kunstform zu verstehen. In that, not unlike an auteur director, that, you know, there is so much more to it if you have the eye and you have the depth and you have the impulses to generate a point of view. Yes.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
You know, because anybody, it was always sort of this, the argument of photography, once they introduced the Brownie camera, it's like, well, if everyone can do it, how do we establish it as an art form? Yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Direktoren, die völlig einzigartig sind in ihrem Prozess und was er ableiten kann, und was er ableiten kann, aus Schauspielern zu kommen. Und in den Kollaborationen, die er macht, gibt es eine echte Ehrlichkeit dazu und eine echte Pathos und eine echte Komödie dazu. Ja, ich glaube, ich werde mehr über ihn am Dienstag sprechen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Ich bekomme die nicht, außer wenn sie lokal sind, weil dann weiß ich, was neben mir passiert. Aber wenn es ein Privatnummer ist, dann ist es so.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Findest du, dass der Effekt der Direktoren, mit denen du gearbeitet hast, die Art und Weise, wie du Dinge anschaust, verändert hat? Oh, absolut.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Aber, jees, was für eine erstaunliche Ehre es ist, zu sprechen mit echten, echten Künstlern. You know, there is still a world for that. There is still a significance to doing fearless art. And it's a shame that the work of true artists is largely underappreciated. And it really packs the biggest sort of wallop in terms of connecting to your humanity and in terms of being challenged
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Er ist nicht mehr da. Ich weiß nicht, wie ihr das handelt. Ich mache ein bisschen Aktivismus. Ich habe keine Ahnung. Du hast keine Ahnung. I mean, I know I just did a lead in an indie, but I know I'll be in that one, but I don't, you don't know.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
It's old news, but going forward, I mean... It's valuable, it's good.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
in einer provokativen Weise und diese Herausforderung akzeptieren.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
I think we're entering a time and we're kind of living in a time where the thrust of culture is about ridding the culture of people that the dominant culture feels make them uncomfortable or are challenged by their presence or their life or their being or their personal expression because it interrupts the mediocrity of what is ascendant.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
But also, the way you're describing the actor's job... dass es Leute gibt, die es als Arbeit bezeichnen und okay damit sind und gut genug sind, um zu arbeiten. Aber die Unterschiede zwischen einem Mann, der einen Job macht, und einem Künstler sind relativ zu deiner persönlichen Suche nach der Wahrheit eines Charakters.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
So it seems like your experience, that's the essential part of your approach to acting, is to put this thing into a context of a real person and feel the feelings that are that guy's personal truth. And then you come out of that, you know, exhausted or changed forever. But I do think it's a choice to approach the job of acting like that.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Es war wirklich sehr erstaunlich, ja. Aber es ist alles so, wie, aber über die, weil, du weißt, ich muss versuchen, wie, war es ein Punkt, weil ich fühle, als ob ich dich nicht sehe, wie, ich, dieses Film ist das erste Mal, das ich es gesehen habe, seit Succession. Aber bevor das, ich meine, wie, war es ein Punkt, wo du genug davon hattest? Oh, yeah, definitely.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Es ist nicht ein guter Zeitpunkt, ein schwieriger Zeitpunkt für Künstler, in Bezug auf das Erfinden des Rückschlags und auch das Deliveren ihres Kunststils in einer puren Art, wie sie es wollen. Sie wollen es in die Hand nehmen und dann konfrontiert oder gekämpft haben. Und auf dieser Note, jemanden, den ich nicht gut kannte, ein typischer Typ, und ich glaube, ein echter Künstler.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Yeah, and it's not like these movies are made that often.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Was macht es für einen, auf einem Set mit ihm zu arbeiten, mit jemandem, bei dem es mehr Druck gibt oder mehr Ego?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Ja, es war interessant, weil es so aussah, als ob der Film ursprünglich um das Theater der Schauspielerin ging. Es ist ein interessanter Film für ihn, habe ich gedacht. Ja. Wie hat der Oscar-Win-Effekt deinen ganzen Selbstgefühl beeinflusst? Hat es einen großen Unterschied gemacht? Mein Gefühl für mich selbst? Das ist eine große Frage.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Er war auf dem Show und wir hatten ein paar Mal Abendessen. Jeff Baina ist weggegangen. He died by suicide. He was a film director and a thinker. He's married to Aubrey Plaza. And it's a devastating, sad event. I didn't know him well, but I was very impressed with him. And I had a couple of nice conversations with him. I enjoyed his movies. And we had lunch together. I can't remember when it was.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Harry Dean. Yeah, okay. Like I can picture many in my head. Is Gary Oldman a character actor? Now? Es wird ein bisschen anders. Es ist eine interessante Sache, weil manche Leute interessierter werden, als sie älter werden. Weil die Rollen anders sind. Ich habe De Niro in dem Film Ezra ein bisschen gespielt. Und De Niro in einem Supporting Role ist das beste fucking Ding im Welt.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Weil das ist wirklich, worüber du sprichst, wenn du über Charaktere sprichst. Aber ist...
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
So you're saying that the classification of a movie star... Don't you pigeonhole me. You got a movie star and then you got the funny looking guy.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
For sure. Yeah, I mean, I think it is sort of, now that we've talked about it, a dated classification. But I always say it with reverence.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
And he knew my partner who passed away, Lynn Shelton. And he brought me a book. I didn't get to it, but he brought me a book called The Work of Mourning by Jacques Derrida. And it seems to be essays about friends and acquaintances and people that had impact on Derrida and his process of death.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Es wird komplett von dir ausgedrückt. Und deine Impulse und deine Vision, wie sie sich entwickelt. Und du kannst ein bisschen heute machen. Genau, das wollte ich sagen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Well, I thought, I like all your work, but this movie was great.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Es war für mich ein wenig dünn damals, aber ich habe mich wieder mit dünnem Material eingeschränkt, im Hinblick auf die Tragödie, die in Bezug auf Jeff geschehen ist. Ich werde einen Blick auf dieses Buch nehmen. Aber mein Herz geht an die Menschen in seinem Leben. Es ist sehr schwierig. Es ist sehr schwierig. Es ist in manchen Fällen zu Menschen enttäuschend. Ich weiß nicht.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Wow, that's kind of a weird mystery. Because you wouldn't believe how many actors I talk to that don't watch their stuff.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
I just think maybe because of the notion that you don't really know how it's going to cut together or you don't really... But to me it's like, the question is, is the work enough to where whatever it becomes doesn't necessarily matter? No, it's not. Okay.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Well, that's interesting. So maybe that's why some people like to show up for the Q&A.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
There you go. It's quite a career that guy has had. Seems a little, still a little miffed about the thin red line situation in Terrence Malick. But that guy works and he's good. So go see The Brutalist. It's now playing in theaters. Hang out for a minute, folks.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
A year ago this week we had our 1500th episode of WTF and I had one of the best conversations of the year with Paul Giamatti. The thing about those books is like, oh, look at these books. Oh. And I'll underline, dude. Oh. I'll underline.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Yes, that's true. And then... And then it's over.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Yeah, and just so you can, when people bring it up, you can at least nod in agreement without lying, knowing that you read it, but you can't really engage in the whole conversation. Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting. You can listen to that episode for free in whatever podcast app or platform you're using to get all episodes of WTF ad-free, the new ones and the archived ones. Sign up for WTF+.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Boomer lives, Monkey and La Fonda, Cat Angels everywhere.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Das Gewicht kann ziemlich hart werden. Das Gewicht kann ziemlich schwer werden. Ich kenne wirklich nicht seine Situation, außer dass es jetzt tragisch und traurig ist. Aber es gibt viele Leute da draußen, die wissen, dass das Gewicht dieser Dinge sehr schwer zu kompartmentieren ist, wenn man irgendeine Unmöglichkeit hat, seine Empathie zu kontrollieren.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
or even if you're empathetic a bit, or even if you're sensitive and nervous and scared and you have a hard time compartmentalizing everything that's coming at you, it can get pretty bleak. And as somebody who has been through periods of suicidal ideation, I used to do a joke about it, which is what I do, it's important to know that there is help out there.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
And there are people to talk to, because many times the feelings that you're having will pass. And a bad day is a bad day, a bad hour is a bad hour. And sometimes, depending on... how isolated you are or in your feelings or in your life, you know, the inability to let those things pass and take tragic action is fairly common.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
But know that there are people that care about you and there are people that are willing to help you and there are places you can go. I mean, you can just call 988- That is the suicide and crisis lifeline. I don't know. I just find it's important to be honest with this stuff. I mean, you can be cynical about it. You can frame it however you want.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
But it's nothing trivial, whether it's depression or just you've had enough. I don't know. But I know it's common. And as things become more frightening and people become more isolated, that this is going to increase. And I know that a lot of times I get emails from people who get some comfort from me talking about this stuff publicly. But know this. You are not alone. Yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
I do believe I am in some sort of burnout. I do believe that I've hit a wall. I have a lot of work to do. I have many jobs of my own choosing, which is good. But I'm not one of these people that ever really acknowledges or acknowledged or even understood what burnout is. But apparently it's a real thing. And you can't just snap out of it.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
I'm an old man. So on top of just the regular kind of challenges of doing what I do in the many areas that I do it in, there's this feeling of like not being able to keep up. And then there's the feeling of like, why would I want to? And then there's a feeling of what would I do? And then there's a feeling of like, well, maybe I should just exercise more. Maybe I should eat something.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Maybe I should, you know, do more nicotine. Like, At some point, something's got to give, but that's a choice one has to make. I mean, Jesus Christ. I'll be honest with you. My brain is overloaded for a lot of different reasons. I hit two parked cars the other day. I'm not proud. I wasn't texting. I wasn't driving. I was parking my fucking car. And I hit two parked cars. I mean, gee.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
And there was this moment where... It's this parking lot that's always a problem. It's at my gym. And the spaces, they're like an illusion. They're not quite big enough for regular-sized cars. And it's always a hassle. The lines aren't set right. The spaces in between the cars aren't set right. And I want to park as close to the door of the gym in the enclosed lot as possible.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
It's just the nature of my brain. So I'm trying to get into this space. And I kind of swing into it. And I bump... the car to my right in the space to the right of the space I'm trying to take. But it wasn't just a bump, it was a crunch. And I'm like, oh, fuck. And I have this car.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
I mean, I've had it a long time, but I would say that I hit the curb, you know, turning into my driveway 80% of the time. I just don't have, I don't quite navigate this car properly. I don't know why. It's just a 2019 Avalon. It's not difficult, but it's just... Die Natur davon, und es war immer so, ich habe vorher Autos wie dieses gebraucht.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Aber ich habe dieses Auto gekauft und es ist hart und ich weiß, dass es nichts ist. Also steige ich zurück und versuche, you know, reangle and drive into the space again. And as I'm driving in, you know, I'm looking to the right to make that spot and then to the left.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fucknicks? What's happening? I'm Marc Maron. This is my podcast. WTF. One of the originals. Audio only. All interviews done in person, one on one. No one else in the studio. We're analog, baby. This is old school. Yeah, that's the way we do it. We always have done it. I don't know, man.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
You know, there's a car right there who someone has just parked and I just see my, my rearview mirror kind of drag, you know, gently across a bit of the surface of that car next to me, leaving a mark. And so that's two, that's two down. And then I back out and then the woman who's in that car who was just parked, it gets out.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
And for a minute there, I think she's the parking lot attendant coming to, you know, monitor the situation. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know, I gotta leave a note or whatever. And then I realize, oh, it's a woman in that car who's, my rear view has just scuffed her paint job a bit. And then I tried to pull into that space again. I'm like a fucking idiot.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
The stubbornness involved, I'm like, what is wrong with my brain? Und ich zurückgehe und sie sagt, du kannst nur deine Gefährdung aufstellen und mir deine Insurance geben. Ich bin so, für das? Es gibt kaum etwas da, aber gut. Ich sagte, ich werde nur über die Straße parken. Sie sagt, ich glaube nicht, dass du in diesen Spot kommst. Und ich bin so, ja, das ist klar, danke.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
Und dann fuhr ich es um und parkierte mich von dort, wo wir waren. Und sie wollte meine Insurance, also gab ich sie ihr. Und dann, weißt du, ich schaute nach dem anderen Auto, das ich getroffen habe. Und es war, es war nicht enttäuscht, aber es war ziemlich schlecht. Und ich dachte, na, das ist das richtige, was man hier tun kann. So I left a note. And that guy got back to me in a couple hours.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
It was his wife's car. And I told him, look, you know, I could just pay for the damages if you figure out what they are. If you want to go through insurance, we can do that, whatever you want to do. And then I went to my guy to see the damage on my car. My fucking bumper just cracked right off, just about. And what that says about my car, I don't know.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
But the whole undertaking of having my head up my ass... It's gonna cost me like, you know, two, three grand. Point being, where the fuck was my brain? You know, granted, I didn't sleep well that night. I was going to the gym.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1606 - Adrien Brody
But this thing about burnout or about kind of, you know, losing, you know, control of your sense of sort of space and time and self because you've got so much overloaded in your brain is a real thing. And now I'm gonna, you know, it's gonna cost me a bumper. Apparently I've got pretty good bumpers in place in terms of plowing through life.