Exclusive Interview with Adrien Brody By Jennifer Faith Stiefel DCM: This must be the weirdest love scene you’ve ever shot?

Adrien Brody: Let me think about that. Yeah, probably. It’s very exciting to get to do something like that and it’s so wrong on so many levels that it creates such a - - that’s what’s wonderful about making movies. You get to do things that just push the limits. It’s very exciting. It’s fun and it’s strange.

DCM: Is it hard to play the reality of that?

Adrien Brody: Well, it’s a difficult thing to absorb but it’s temporary and you know it’s not your own but you have to consider all the levels of it, of what got you to that point, what got the character to that point, the levels of immorality and temptation.

DCM: Is he hypnotized too? It’s in her eyes.

Adrien Brody: Well, he’s intimate with her. It’s difficult for me to say because I don’t want to reveal too much but he’s intimate with those eyes. He has this connection. He doesn’t understand why in some way but she’s obviously very beautiful in a strange way. She’s got very beautiful human feminine characteristics as well, so I think that’s part of the allure for him. I think he’s kind of caught up in the strangeness of it all and it’s very strange. That element of it is very creepy but funny. I mean, when I watch it, it pushes the boundaries so much that it’s amusing to me. Making it it’s much more serious and you have to deal with it with a level of integrity but when you’re watching it, I think it’s so messed up. The situation is so [unusual].

DCM: Is Clive an homage to Colin Clive in Frankenstein?

Adrien Brody: Yes, that’s intentional. I also see it as Clive Niccoli and Vincenzo Natali has some similarities too so maybe there’s a bit of the director thrown in there as well.

DCM: Do you think human cloning is scary?

Adrien Brody: Well, we’re still stuck on the love scene. There are many elements of this that are unethical and immoral in this film that are that way.

DCM: As the male, you’re so dominated by Elsa. She’s the alpha male. Can you talk about that?

Adrien Brody: Well, have you ever been in a relationship? [Laughs] I mean, isn’t it always a bit like that? I mean, look. I think she is a tremendous force. The character that Sarah plays is a tremendous force. Look, there is a shared ambition that they’re both very highly intelligent, they’re both very successful in their field and she corrupts his sense of morality and there are all these things that he’s desperately trying to consider. I think I tried to play Clive as someone who tries to play by the book but who falls into temptation. I think that’s what makes it interesting. You play a scientist who just has the intelligence, has the capability to do something tremendous and you have to understand that all of this is being taken from them. So their aspirations and what they’ve visualized as tremendous success and groundbreaking in their field is being stripped of them. It’s a desperate moment. There’s a bit of coercion on her part but he follows through and this is the problem. This is what we deal with in life. You have to be accountable and also there are repercussions.

In something that is as relevant as genetic research or any kind of scientific advance, you have to be very careful. That’s why there are all these debates about these matters because even with GM foods, even if the goal is noble, you’re still dealing with the possibility of changing the landscape on this planet forever. There are already many problems with produce that have been kind of corrupted from genetically modified things. Modified soy and it kind of blows over into other areas and then it just spreads. That’s only one level of it. Technology and scientific research, look, it’s essential. Right? It’s essential that we progress and explore, but at the same time, there are many, many considerations. I think that’s what makes this so exciting because Splice isn’t far off from what reality could be or may be.

DCM: Does that mean we’ll mess it up like the scientists in the movie?

Adrien Brody: Well, there is the potential. Look, even with nuclear technology. This was supposedly designed to create something that is so devastating and intimidating that it couldn’t possibly be used. Here we are in a world, but the design of that wasn’t strictly for destructive purposes. It was to prevent it and that doesn’t necessarily work. If things like that can be created, that level of responsibility is beyond anything we could comprehend. We’ve witnessed the repercussions of that.

DCM: How do you choose roles? Is there any pressure as the youngest Best Actor Oscar winner not to do Splice or Predators?

Adrien Brody: Well, the only pressure I feel is when people wonder why I make certain choices and they ask me, “Why did you make that choice?” I don’t really feel pressure in that. It’s a legitimate question. I’m not saying that it isn’t. For many years I’ve worked very hard at proving something to myself and I’m very disciplined in my choices and I have not lost that discipline. What I’ve gained is the ability to be more playful with my work and my choices, which I have less to prove to myself. I can’t live up to everyone’s expectations all the time and that’s not my responsibility. I don’t feel that way. I have to live up to my own and making movies, when I did King Kong and it was very exciting because I wanted to work with Peter and I wanted to do something. King Kong is this iconic film and very different obviously from anything that I had done. I was amazed at how children and young people loved Jack Black. They loved him. Everywhere he went, they adored him, really adored him. I thought wow, that’s such a wonderful thing, and none of those kids recognized me, none of them. It was a realization that I had a whole audience that doesn’t know my work and that I’m not - - I think what I love about film is that you have this wonderful connection and so many people can see the hard work that you’ve put into something and you can actually have this connection. It’s a wonderful experience to be in a theater. I feel it, we all feel it. When you are moved by something and a performance and you’re taken down that road, it’s what we hope to see in the theater and it’s what an actor really strives for.

My point is that doing certain films, after that, kids started knowing me and I’d go to the bank and there’d be kids there like, “You’re the guy from King Kong” and “awesome” and high fiving me. Then when I’m hanging out with Tony Hawk and going around, I’m not the strange guy that’s hanging out with Tony Hawk. I’m the guy from this movie or that and I love that. That’s one element to it but my choices have been to constantly try and find things that are different, that challenge me, that are unusual and to take some risk with it. I thought this was such a unique film and such a complex genre movie. I loved horror movies when I was a teenager. I loved them. I saw every Nightmare on Elm Street in theaters. I saw Predator in theaters when it came out and was in awe. So for me to have an opportunity to go in there and bring what I do to that and try and bring the level of complexity to the role, in Predators for instance to make Royce a kind of tragic, flawed antihero character within this setting, and also put on a certain degree of muscle mass and kind of do this, that’s very exciting to me. That’s a really exciting process. So on one level, I can see how there’s like “How can you do that?” Show me, give me access to a movie that’s comparable, a dramatic film that’s comparable to The Pianist and I’d love to do it. But if I’m not finding that, I have to also find new things and experiment with that and I love that process.

DCM: You have such a great voice, have you considered narration and was it considered to explain parts of this film?

Adrien Brody: Well, that’s a directorial decision but thank you and I appreciate that. I would love to do an animated film or something like that. It would be great to play a character like that. I mean, I did a little bit with Wes Anderson.

DCM: What about just straight narration?

Adrien Brody: Yeah. I did a documentary, a small documentary about a program for hearing impaired children in Mexico and I narrated that. That was the only opportunity that I found that I’ve had time to do and that’s kind of been right. But yeah, I like the idea of doing that.

DCM: Is Predators going to be scary?

Adrien Brody: Yeah, it’s going to be very scary.

DCM: Is it more difficult to follow a good path as an actor with all the sequels, prequels, 3D?

Adrien Brody: Well, I do many independent films. If you look at my resume, they’re still the majority and this, by the way, is an independent movie. This is a wonderful situation where you do a film with a great director who’s very passionate about it, who has a real point of view, who’s worked on it for 10 years. You make it the best you can with limited resources and then it goes to a film festival and then it gets picked up by something like Joel Silver and Warner Brothers and sees the light of day and gets a marketing budget. That’s remarkable and that’s really rare, almost unheard of in this economy and the way this business is. So if you look at it, this is just another kind of independent movie but it’s kind of given its moment which is really amazing. Yes, they do make a lot of - - the problem is to find roles within these films that speak to you. Unfortunately, most of them don’t. They don’t and most of them aren’t interested in me because they don’t care if - -

DCM: A good actor plays it?

Adrien Brody: I’m not saying that but the whole vision of the success of the film is based on kind of a formula and if I don’t fit in that formula, it’s very difficult to persuade people to alter it because it’s like a business model. It’s counterintuitive to creating art so you have to find something where you’re allowed to have some artistic freedom and the character can have some depth but also fit in that. I’m grateful for Fox, Robert Rodriguez, Nimrod Antal who directed Predators to give me that opportunity. I campaigned very hard. They were not believers at first. I told them I will deliver and I’ll prove myself. That’ll be determined to some degree by how the film does or by what the response is to my work, but I approached it with the same intensity that I would approach anything like The Pianist. I locked myself in the forest and I changed my whole diet. I didn’t do a lot of things. I didn’t eat very much, I handled it with a great deal of seriousness and I did a lot of military training and all that stuff.

DCM: Overall are you happy with your choices so far?

Adrien Brody: I’m blessed. I feel really blessed.

DCM: What’s your favorite horror movie of all time?

Adrien Brody: Alien is one of them and it’s more sci-fi. It’s similar in tone, I love Alien. Maybe The Shining might be one of the more deeply disturbing weird films.

DCM: You’re going to be working with Woody Allen in Paris?

Adrien Brody: Not bad. Pretty good way to spend the summer. It’s not the whole summer. I wish it was the whole summer.

DCM: Did he just call you up to be the crazy eccentric in the movie?

Adrien Brody: No, I wish things were that easy. No, we met, took a meeting.

DCM: He’s famous for deciding in three seconds.

Adrien Brody: Well, you may not know you have the part but he may have made that decision. He doesn’t linger on those decisions, but I’m pretty right for this I think. Anyway, it’s a cameo. It’ll be a lot of fun and it will be a chance to reunite with Owen.