Adrien Brody, the winner of the Academy Award, has opened up about the profound psychological effects of his dramatic physical transformation for his role in The Pianist. In a recent interview with Vulture from New York Magazine, Brody talked about how playing Holocaust victim Władysław Szpilman gave him PTSD and an eating disorder that lasted for more than a year.
Brody took a strenuous weight-loss program to play Szpilman in Roman Polanski’s 2002 film. After going on what he called a “near-starvation diet” that included not drinking much water, he lost 30 pounds and was now only 129 pounds.
“That was a physical transformation necessary for storytelling,” Brody told us. He said, though, that the experience was more than physical. “That kind of opened me up, spiritually, to a depth of understanding of emptiness and hunger in a way that I didn’t know, ever.”
Brody won the Academy Award for Best Actor at 29, making him the youngest winner. The role came with a big price tag for me. He stated that he had PTSD and said that he had been dealing with an eating disorder for “at least a year” after filming. He was also sad at one point, but he made people laugh by saying, “I was depressed for a year if not a lifetime.” “Just joking, my friend.”
These new details show how dedicated Brody is to method acting. In the interview, he also talked about how hard it is for him to train for other jobs. He asked to be put in a straitjacket for The Jacket to better understand what his character went through in a mental hospital. In Oxygen, he picked real metal braces over fake ones, which he later felt bad about when they had to be taken off forcibly. During the shooting of Summer of Sam, he also got a permanent injury to his face from an accidental punch.
We also talked about a lighter part of Brody’s career: the time he hosted Saturday Night Live in 2002, which caused much controversy. When he presented the musical guest Sean Paul on that show, he wore dreadlocks and tried to sound Jamaican. There were rumors that Brody had been kicked off the show, but he assured them he had not; he said, “I have never been invited back on.” I’m not sure what to say.”
At the moment, Brody is getting much attention for his role in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist. He has already won an acting award from the New York Film Critics Circle. A24 is currently showing the film in some cinemas.
