Adrien Brody on Winning the Oscar, Catching a Train with Wes Anderson, and Making Music With Popcorn
variety.comJohn Bleasdale Guest Contributor “The Pianist” and “King Kong” star Adrien Brody spoke at the Red Sea Film Festival Friday about a wide variety of creative pursuits, including making music from popcorn in the 1990s. “I liked the sound of the kernels of popcorn hitting the aluminium lid of the pan and so I set my microphone up and recorded it and then I sampled it and put on some reverb,” he told the audience in Saudi Arabia. “It went pok-a-pok-a-pok.” Something of a prodigy, he was cast as a lead in a TV movie “Home at Last” when he was only 15 and later became the youngest actor to win the best male lead Oscar.
Hailing from Queens, New York, the child of a celebrated photographer and a painter, Brody’s love for acting was kindled when he was enrolled by his mother in an acting school — the American Academy of Dramatic Arts — where she had been photographing. “You do what these kids are doing all day,” she told him.
Subsequently, he attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, made famous by the Alan Parker film “Fame.” Applying for art as well as acting, the decision was made for him when his art application was turned down.
Roles followed in films by directors such as Steven Soderbergh and Spike Lee as he made a name for himself in the independent cinema scene. “It was a wonderful time in my life.
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