Adrien Brody
Appearances
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.
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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.