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has carried on with a variety of successful projects, including King Kong, Predators, and Midnight in Paris as well as Wes Anderson films such as The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and last year’s The French Dispatch, which he followed up with a plum part on HBO’s smash hit series, Succession. The way it’s going now, 2022 is going to be one of his busiest to date. In addition to Clean and Winning Time, he’ll star in Netflix’s Joyce Carol Oates adaptation Blonde, co-starring Ana De Armas as Marilyn Monroe; the whodunit See How They Run with Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan; and yet another, still-to-be-titled Wes Anderson film alongside Tom Hanks, Margot Robbie, Scarlett Johannsson, Bill Murray, and Tilda Swinton. “They’ve all been really exciting, to be honest,” he says of his recent work. “To keep collaborating with Wes [Anderson] after all these years and for him to keep calling me back, is such a wonderful thing. I’ve loved [Blonde director] Andrew Dominik’s work — he’s such a fascinating person and a wonderful filmmaker and I feel like we’ve developed a friendship since then — and [to work with] Ana De Armas, who is amazing in that film, I’m grateful.” He doesn’t take these opportunities — or that he’s so fulfilled by each — for granted, because it wasn’t always the case. “There are different phases in one’s lifetime, and sometimes you’re struggling to find the opportunities that are meaningful for you and therefore, you pursue other things that are creative,” he says, referencing his first Haute Living cover and accompanying first art show in 2015. “At that point in time, I had basically taken almost a two-year hiatus from acting to paint, because I found great inspiration in the painting and was finding less meaningful roles. Now, I feel most fortunate that I’m getting a lot of inspiring work and inspiring people asking me to come work with them at this point in my life. At the same time, I still paint every day; I was up late last night painting, in fact. I feel that I have no shortage of creative drive, so if I can apply that and I have the space to apply it, I will. There is always growth when you can find new opportunities.” He paints, he makes music, he acts, he produces, he writes. As a creative, Adrien Brody is the full package. So I wonder what he thinks of the phrase ‘Renaissance Man,’ whether it applies, or if he finds it too limiting. “I’ve been called worse things, so that’s not the worst label someone could give me!” he says with a laugh. “But [truthfully] I don’t look at life like that. I’m just clamoring to be creative. Artwork proceeded acting, and music preceded any success as an actor. I was making beats and home tracking out beats since I was 19 or 20, so it just took me a long time.” He references his parents, photographer Sylvia Plachy, and Elliot Brody, a retired history teacher-turned-painter, and how they inspired him and pushed him to be his true self. “I grew up in a very creative house. My parents encouraged me to follow that path, and I’m here [in life] because of that. I’ve had an acting career because of that. I have good instincts as an artist because of that. There will be different phases in my life, and who knows what will be my priority in the future? But I hope to always strive to remain creative.” 20 HAUTE LIVING hauteliving.com
Let’s call this phase ‘knowledge’ — or maybe, simply, it’s maturity. He’s come into his own as an artist, as a person, someone who knows what he wants and is determined, just two years shy of 50, to get it. Though will it ever be within his grasp? Likely not, but that’s life. When you stop growing, you stop living. He says as much, noting, “I have much more clarity than I’ve had in my youth, I’ll put it that way. I think I have a greater understanding of many things. I don’t know much, but I do know more than I did, and I’ve had a lot of time to process many changes in my life and career — both positive and negative — and I know what my priorities are. I know what fulfills me, and that is doing the work. I won’t stop. It can be exhausting, but it’s so rewarding that it’s worth it.” Case in point: his circuitous journey from becoming the youngest Best Actor Oscar winner in history up until now. After all, 2022 marks 20 years since he appeared in The Pianist, a role that has, in many ways, defined his career. But for Brody, though, it propelled him to a different echelon of fame, it’s still just part of the overall ride. In fact, he expresses surprise when I mention the anniversary of his milestone; he hadn’t registered that it had come on so quickly. He says, “It’s a great achievement and I’m grateful for it, but you’ve just got to keep finding things that feed you. That work is done and I’m grateful for the accolades and the recognition — the visibility that it’s created has been very helpful for me but that doesn’t change or end the journey of a creative path. It’s helped in many ways, but it doesn’t take away the need to keep moving forward.” Brody then brings it back to our previous discussion, correlating Pat Riley’s course with his own. “There’s a basketball analogy here!” he declares, unprompted. “[Riley] had so many monumental achievements in his life — he even had a championship ring — but he had to take steps to slowly eke his way back into the game [after he retired], working as Chick Hearn’s color man instead of being the star he was. I’m sure it took great humility on his part to start over at the bottom and have the drive to get to the top. It was a long transition before he became ‘the man’ again. It was amazing for me to witness someone that I’ve admired — and interestingly enough, only saw in that kind of pure, successful form, which is how, sometimes, people may see me — You’re an Academy Award-winning actor and why are you striving to do all these other things? — to see his journey, study him, see where he came from, and what he had to overcome time and time again to get to those peaks. I identify with a lot of that.” The phrase “winning time,” and the power behind it, is something he relates to as well. “Time is the greatest luxury,” he proclaims. “I think we’ve all realized with the pandemic how much of what we’ve taken for granted, [and which] frankly, can be taken away from us. And I took it for granted, too, but that’s why I’m working so hard at the moment. Now, more than ever, I’m conscious of how valuable my time really is.” Sounds like a win to me.
