Adrien Brody is opening up about the lengths he went to for his Oscar-winning performance in Roman Polanski’s 2002 film The Pianist.
Brody portrayed Holocaust survivor Władysław Szpilman in the biographical film. For the role, Brody took on a near-starvation diet and lost 30 lbs., dropping his weight to 129 lbs. The actor was said to be “barely drinking water” when they started filming the movie, which was shot in reverse, showing Szpilman at his most depleted.
“That was a physical transformation that was necessary for storytelling,” Brody told New York Magazine’s Vulture. “But then 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.”
His transformation for the role left lasting effects like insomnia and panic attacks, agreeing that he suffered from PTSD from the whole experience.
“I definitely had an eating disorder for at least a year. And then I was depressed for a year, if not a lifetime. I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” he added.
The Method actor has been put in unique situations while portraying different roles. When he filmed The Jacket, the actor asked the director to leave him in a straitjacket “so he could get a feel for it.” The publication also notes that when Brody filmed Summer of Sam, “someone accidentally punched him in the face” which gave “him a permanent dent.”
When he filmed Oxygen, portraying a serial killer with braces, he opted out of getting prosthetic braces, adding, “I didn’t know how fucking painful that was until they stuck in pliers and ripped them off my teeth at the end.”