Adrien Brody

36:15There's a kind of formality of speech of a man in the 50s and the way he expressed himself was very unique. And he passed when I was quite young, but he was so memorable to me. He was super charismatic and quite powerful. and so there were qualities that I wanted to integrate of that. So I worked with a dialect coach that the film provided, whose this woman, Tanera Marshall, she was wonderful. And what is that process to learn a dialect? It's interesting. There are lots of techniques and there are things that we hear or we perceive to hear that we miss, that someone else who's, as you know, very well, it doesn't even have to be about a specific thing, but it's a nuance that's overlooked.

37:03And you say, I notice this, and then that gives information for the person who's trying to convey it to see if they can integrate a new little detail to that. And so I found one person in particular who was a Holocaust survivor who spoke a lot about his experiences, recounted his experiences in Hungary of that time as a boy and his father and how all the details of the factories were shut down and people were hidden and all these things which which only helped, but the way he spoke was very much the way my grandfather sounded, and it was a key resource for me. And so I would listen to it for hours and hours and hours on end, and I would try to replicate what he's saying.

38:04I almost memorized many of the things by just hearing them repeatedly, and then I would work on my own dialect and then I would lead other things as I would. And then, you know, the beauty was we shot in Budapest and even though the film takes place in Doyle's town in Pennsylvania, it was very helpful for me to be there in Hungary, hearing a dialect at the crew all had, you know, when they spoke English, had things for me to learn from. And I had to represent because I had, you know, I wasn't in another country. And so it gave me a bit of an extra push to be aligned with, even beyond the dialect.

38:51You pick up qualities that are very useful. And you just keep working and working and working away at it. And because, especially in independent films, you don't have a great deal of leeway. You don't have, you know, we shot on film, we shot on this division, which we should talk about at some point which is amazing. But you have limited time. We shot on a 33 -day window, which is nothing. We made the movie for less than $10 million, which is nothing for a film of this breadth and epic nature and visual storytelling and so that meant that every second counted. So I was home studying all the time and working.

39:35And it's very exciting because, you know, I'm steeped in that. I have most of the films I've done since I've been a boy have been independent films. And the lack of resources often spurs great creative moments and gems and the pressure here. As unpleasant as it is at times, it helps you cook, and I'm used to cooking under pressure. And it's good. Do you say, in general, pressure helps you or undermines you? I'm good with pressure. I tend to lean into things that feel a little bit more higher stakes. It's fight or flight, you know? And you don't have to fight and you don't have to flee, but you have to find a way to solve it and get through it and not run away.

40:39It's getting used to using that pit in your stomach for good and to wake up the brain and the emotional state and then and that's something I've grown accustomed to and I'm not intimidated by. Yeah. How different is it playing a fictional character versus playing a real human? You have additional responsibility, of course, portraying a person that you're representing. You have a responsibility anyway to make a fictional character real. So it's not that you don't have your, you're not freed of your responsibilities, but you're not encumbered by certain things that are quite known. I've played numerous characters who are real people and obviously, you know, portraying Pat Riley, for instance, and we all know and have a very distinct memory of how he was at that era.

41:49And it was very important for me. And the filmmakers started earlier than my understanding of Pat Riley and most people. And I was very eager to get to the space where I could represent the Pat Riley I felt I knew and wanted to represent, which came after this period where they wanted to show a bit of his uncertainty in his life and very different stylistically and personality wise. And it's a beautiful arc in the long run, but I kept wanting to almost defend the image that I felt ought to be represented in my portrayal. Yeah, right. Yeah. There is a there is a different sense of responsibility.

42:38The pianist of course I portrayed Vladislav Spielman that the movie was based on his memoirs and that's also quite significant, you know, but if you represent a horrible time in history and you represent someone who's endured that or witnessed that, you still have a responsibility to all of those that have experienced and been connected to some kind of horrific loss that's unfathomable. And so I don't know if I would have done it my work differently. I apply the same level of focus. It's just, I think you can use your imagination in ways that doesn't feel like it has to adhere to a certain quality.

43:29So that makes sense. Yeah. Typically, when you're shooting, how aware are you of the frame that you're in or the space that you're in? And do you pay attention to things like that or do you just act? No, I'm very, no. No, not anymore. I think there was a time probably that I just let it rip and hoped and didn't know, didn't know enough about what lens they were on and didn't know that I should know. Yeah. And that's not to be self -aware or overly controlling. It's to give you insight into the cinematic language and the tools that are being used in those moments to help tell that story. And that shouldn't necessarily have to come from your director to say we're on an 80 -mill lens and we're very close to you so you need to bring it way down.

44:33You know anyway, I mean you're there for the blocking. You know you don't have to necessarily ask, but sometimes I'll say what's the frame? What's bottom of frame? What's my, what lens are you on? I don't like looking at dailies or a dailies or playback. If I can help it, just to not somehow potentially get self -conscious, I know what I feel. I am conveying, I don't want to see me interpreting that. I don't want to see the physical. I want to just be and feel it, that makes sense. But I do like to see the frame and where I fit in the frame and how what space I have to work in, you know. And yeah, there are no close ups in the theater.

45:22You've got to just stand, you know, It's why you got to really figure out how to make those moments a moment and you know and a moment for someone up in the back. That's part of the beauty of film. I like, I know a lot, I mean I grew up my mother's Soviet plahy, I grew up the son of an amazing photographer. So film and perspective and her point of view and the artistry in the way in the images can be caught in a frame or partially caught in a frame and how that further depicts the figures in the frame and tells the stories, something that's very personal and familiar to me. And so I love the work of a cinematographer and how it's, and the operator, not just a cinematographer whose objective is also lighting and figuring out that look and feel and consistency of a story telling, but you're a steady cam operator who you're doing a dance with that day and who's got to be with you and you've got to be with them.

46:30And you know when certain things are being revealed when you turn into it or he's encountering you over a shoulder or what you need to do to further tell the story over your shoulder where it's really not about you, but you have to be the guide in carrying that attention and still feel connected and interesting and alive in the frame without overshadowing that. So it's very important that an actor is in communication with all those departments.

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48:41Do you ever pick up either a mannerism or a quirk that you see out in the world that you might bring into a character? Every day. That was the first thing I noticed that could potentially be compromised with success as an actor. And I wouldn't trade it back to living in a sea of anonymity out in L .A. struggling showing up at auditions and I'm not knowing even my name when I raised my hand to say, yes, that's me. But the freedom of anonymity is that people aren't watching you watching them. And it's another thing that I don't know if I've, it's been enhanced from my mother and traveling with my mom as she photographs grew up in her photographing New York and or just being curious and finding these nuances and specificity interesting, but it's memorable to me.

49:54And I often attributed my four trains that I had to take each way going to performing arts from Queens because it was no direct way to get to Woodhaven to Lincoln Center. As my formal acting training because the Sea of Humanity in New York that I was in the midst of gave me every character and interesting expression and interaction and from every socioeconomic background and you name it, New York is just so full of life and uniqueness. And it was always available to me and it was interesting during COVID, even though we all interacted less, wearing a mask and finding myself at Stodtec train and do things.

50:46I had more freedom to not maybe tuck down and just keep it simple, stay on my phone. And it's a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful thing to observe and incorporate these things that are truthful and interesting and then infuse various ones that you've stored along the way in a role. When I did the pianist, I portrayed him a man who has incredible manual dexterity and finesse and artistry with his fingers as a concert pianist. And then he endures all these horrors and is starved and lives through brutal winters with no heat. And so that would restrict and and inhibit all of your dexterity and mobility.

51:39And I grew up in New York with many cold winters and unfortunately too many homeless people. And I was always very observant of their hardships. And a common trait were very kind of gnarled, swollen, damaged fingers and hands. because they're exposed to the elements all the time. And they've had a hard life. And I, at the end of the film, I tried to make my hands much more claw -like and rigid and uncooperative. So everything from holding a jar of pickles and trying to open it with kind of disconnected to something that was the nimbleness of a surgeon was important for me. And that I learned many, many years ago and absorbed it.

52:42And it came alive in me. And then the moment where he's asked to prove that he's a pianist in front of the German officer. And he sits at a grand piano and hasn't had the opportunity to do so. And then he's in this moment. and he doesn't quite know if he can do it. And his fingers have to kind of come alive slowly. And that's where it was wonderful to have learned to play those portions of Chopin's work and to be able to tell that story in the way I'm actually playing it, not just have someone double my hands and hope that they're gonna, it's like a stuntman doing your thing. It's like he'll do the fall great, but he's doing the fall as a stunt man and not necessarily as that character wouldn't Sometimes you have to try and get in there and if you don't fully break yourself try and do the fall at least initially so that the Qualities of that person come through for the big stun Tell me about body language in general like do you alter your posture for a role?

53:54Yeah, I mean, a lot of things become altered and a lot of things follow a state of being. Some things will be deliberate choices, but it'll be informed by how you feel, the character feels and how you are feeling as the character. So sometimes I will do things to make certain movements a bit more restrictive. Actually restrict those motions or put something sharp in my shoe, for instance, or something where it will alter your gate and it'll remind you of that. And sometimes I joke about it. I like to have rock in my shoe even if there's nothing. I don't need to live because it's good kind of layer in there because we all have we all have a proverbial rock in our shoe, right?

54:55And some people may not, but I think most of us do and I have a lot, I don't need one, but an extra one is a reminder of certain things and I think they help. Yeah. How important is the costume? So, very important, I think sometimes even being uncomfortable in what you're wearing is good for the characters. If you want your character to be comfortable in what he's wearing, you should try and work together with the costume designer to feel comfortable. I mean, I've played a bullfighter where I grew up wearing size 38, Jebos, and I was 32, 31 ways, whatever. you know, 30, you know, ridiculous, you know, hip -hop pants down to my ankles.

55:44But I was then wearing this kind of very tight fuchsia pants where you literally have to force your package over and it was, both fighters would wear it for a matter of like two hours and we'd be shooting 12 -hour days and it could barely even cope. So I wasn't really comfortable in that, I remember, but it was, I had to be. I had to, but the character was, I think, uncomfortable with the degree of his fame and pressure of, you know, his responsibility being one of the greatest bullfighters. And so, So you can find ways of making it feel fitting. Tell me how you learned your craft.

56:40Well my mother had an assignment to photograph the American Academy of Traumatic Arts when I was 11 or something and she had the intuition to know that I was already an actor. which I understand now. I didn't quite get it, but I understand. And I think, you know, I always think, well, all kids are imaginative. And I was different, as a kid. I was much more outgoing. I was fearless and curious and extremely imaginative. And I would tend to see things and express them and kind of replay them as I saw them. So if I encountered some experience, I'd come home and I'd be like, yo, you don't know what I saw this happened.

57:31And I'd kind of reenact those things. And so she saw that. And when she saw these kids in this class that she was photographing, she's like, they're doing what you do every day, which is amazing. And I don't know if I would have encountered this. And the beauty of it was that it started prior to adolescence, prior to when you start shifting into those teenage years. and becoming more self -aware, I think, or receptive to the awareness of your peers, or their subjective ideas about who you are. And I think you have a lot of freedom prior to that. You're not aware. You've kind of mastered childhood.

58:15And so you're free. And that's a great age to encourage your kids to play, to be anything they want to be, but anything performative is quite exciting for them to gain a sense of freedom and understanding and control of that early. And then I spent many years studying and I auditioned for my mom and one friend who was an actress and she got me an audition for her agency and they had a youth department and they agreed to represent me and I put some work here and there. I booked a lead role of a public television movie where I played an orphan in the 1800s shipped from New York out to the Midwest to a farm family and I got to understand about the hardships of these kids and...

59:11How old were you then? 13. maybe just maybe just turned 14. Yeah, yeah. It was epic. Went to Nebraska, filmed. My dad came with me, gave me an opportunity, encouraged me. Remember my dad came to the audition for that and my character had to steal a cigar off a conductor. So my dad went to the candy store and bought me a blunt. And he gave it to me to take in. And I remember there were other kids there. My dad like waited for me in the car. And I often use this anecdote when asked about if someone has given me any great advice over the years. And I said, my dad, this one of my first auditions, my dad said, just go in there like you already have the job.

1:00:00You don't have to like worry about thinking and asking for it. Just go in there like you already have it. And you just show them how you're gonna do it. And it really helped. And so I went in there and just remember there were other kids there and they're sitting with their moms or their parents. And I was there on my own. They called my name and I've rocked up into this room and I did this scene where I steal the cigar off the conductor and I pull out my cigar and put in my mouth or whatever and they were like, who's this? Who's this kid? I was like, when are we, what's next? You need anything else?

1:00:43Thank you was really nice. Whatever, my state of mind was so not what most kids stepping in that room was. And I am really over to my dad to have the understanding of what I needed and to give me the space to feel confident to do it. Come me more about your dad. So my dad, Elliot Brody, Mr. Brody, my dad taught public school in New York, taught middle school in Queens and the Bronx, and he is a great man, and he was a really great teacher. His students loved him. He taught social studies in English as a second language, and he was a very good, very patient to his students and to me and he's quite thoughtful and a very considerate person.

1:01:41He's both my parents are quite empathetic people. He's an amazing painter. He can paint old masters' works on oil, self -taught, in a way that I can never dream of painting. And yeah, he's incredibly intelligent and he's been a real wonderful father and a great husband to my mom. Like he's been very supportive of her creative life and enabling her to live her life as an artist and he supported our family. I'm very appreciative of him. Did you go to performing arts school? I went to public school and I got accepted into La Guaria, which is performing arts, which was fame. That numerous really interesting people attended Timothy Shalame went there years later.

1:02:42Marlon Wains and I used to slapbox in the hallways of the drama department. and I just, he had a very long reach in high school. I remember sparring with him was fun, but it was great. It was a wonderful thing for me. And I had, it saved me. I would have had to go to Franklin, K -Lane, which is a big zone school in Brooklyn. And my parents' home was on the border of Queens and Brooklyn. So I would have had to go into Brooklyn to go to school. And just would have been a very different trajectory. I wouldn't have had an opportunity to have encouragement in the arts in a way that I did go into an art school.

1:03:26And performing arts as a multidisciplinary school is an art department, a finite department, a music department, a dance department, and a drama department. How old were you when you got into magic? very young. I, so my mom worked for the village voice and she had a co -worker there named Howard Smith who was a wonderful writer and really cool dude. He had a corner office with all these gizmos and gadgets and magic tricks and the fiber optic lights. Oh yeah. Remember those? They were amazing. So those little strands and those purple glowing lights through the fiber optic tips. I remember seeing that like six years old or seven and just being like, it was the coolest.

1:04:11So I'd always go hang out in his office and he loved magic and he would show me a trick like a coin that you could bite off a piece of or it'd make something disappear. And then he'd teach me how to do it. And then I'd go torment every one of her coworkers all day and perfect my routine. And I, at the time didn't know, but I looked back at it, I go, and this was really my introduction, connecting. It's a monologue. You get given a bit of pattern, and then you improvise. And then you come up with a whole storyline, and see, I found this coin, and I think it must be magic. I started rubbing it. It had a little piece of dirt on it.

1:04:49And as I rubbed it, look, this piece disappeared. And I said, oh, no. And I figured, if I rubbed it some more, maybe it would come back, and then this disappeared. and then, but then if I rubbed it on this leg too, whatever you'd make up something that worked with the boxed trick. Yeah. And it was so fun. And I remember the joy in that. And that lasted for a number of years. I ended up for a little while doing professionally as the amazing Adrian I would do with children's party as a child, basically do a younger kid's birthday. party for not very much. I think I was doing it for 50 bucks. I did the whole party, you know.

1:05:34But I loved it. I loved it. And I always looked back at it as something that was my gateway drug into acting. And then you got to play Houdini. I did. Yeah. Who was Hungarian by the way. And we shot that also in Budapest. But yeah, Dini was Eric Weiss and he was, he was a somewhat failed magician and he worked in these kind of side -show, kind of carnival -esque side -show gigs and took a job as a locksmith to pay the bills and he invented the term even escape artist. He created a whole new form of magic entertainment of the art of the escape and he was so brilliant. I mean he also was one of the best self -marketers, like he would figure out how to, you know, he'd go to a police chief in a town and say, I bet you I can get out of your jail and I'd be like, I bet you can.

1:06:44He goes, well, I'll make a little wager with you. And then he'd have the press come, invite the press and the officers would stand there and their arms crossed and then he'd escape. And he became, I think, other than like Chaplin, one of the greatest Vauderville performers of that era. And as a kid, I loved Houdini. I loved my loved magicians, and he was one of the greats, yeah.

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1:08:55How much would you say you know about your character when you show up to shoot the first day? Do you know everything or do more things come during the making of the movie? I know a lot, but every day offers new opportunities to discover things about yourself and about the character, right? You think you know who you are and what you're about today, and tomorrow you will encounter something that may prove you right or may add a new sense of understanding and then the day after that you're different. And so that's the beauty of being an actor because the more you live and even the more days you show up on set the more you learn and the more you can apply those things to to the work at hand.

1:09:50You ever have a revelation about a character you played after it's already finished. New insights into who they are. Yeah, I think that's pretty common. I think you go, that's how I should have played that. That's what I, I say, I'll go home and I'll be like, what did I think of that? Why didn't I, fuck, dammit. That's why you have to be really focused and disciplined, you know? Yeah. And sometimes it'll happen, you walk out of the set Set and you go, shh, that is it, that was it. And sometimes you don't feel as connected as you really are and you'll see it and you go, that didn't feel it quite like that and that works in a way that I didn't sense it working.

1:10:43When you read a script and you imagine what the film looks like and then you see the finished film, how different are those two things? It varies. It can be unrecognizable. You know. I worked six months on the thin red line and ended up in the movie for a few minutes and I played the author of the novel. I played James Jones' persona. I mean, the movie was based on a character and a character's point of you and the point of view is removed. So it can be vastly different. And sometimes you'll work with a director who wants to experiment a lot and ask you to do various things and give me one like this and give me one a little more funny or more overtly reactive.

1:11:37And be like, I don't know, okay, I'll try it. And they might use most of those things. those are not choices you really have made. You've succumbed to honor being collaborative, but then ultimately a whole different idea is shaped in an edit. And that's very challenging, especially as you grow as an actor and have a point of view about the work that you're contributing and it's hard. That's why I find painting very helpful for me on my creative journey because it gives me a sense of autonomy at times when I need that. How long have you been painting? I was drawing and painting since I was a child.

1:12:32My mom would have materials around the house and she would have test prints. I grew up with film hanging everywhere and she'd have test prints laid out on record racks on the floor all over the place and then ones that she didn't need that were kind of crossed over and weren't printed right. I would draw on them and do things and so I already started having room to be quite creative and entertain myself with those tools. And then, actually, when I went to performing arts, I also applied to the Fine Art Department and didn't get accepted. So my portfolio wasn't accepted. So I kind of put down painting for many years.

1:13:17And I fortunately didn't get accepted, I think, because I'm just being a struggling painter most likely. And... When did you pick it up again? I got more serious, I think, in my late 30s. When I started finding I needed a bit more creative fulfillment at times, or I was waiting for roles to speak to me. And, you know, if you're an actor, you have to work to get the fulfillment. I'm most alive when I'm in the mix and involved in doing the work that I have dedicated to. in my life towards. But sometimes you're not going to find the right thing and you can't just work for the sake of working, unfortunately.

1:14:08And so painting has offered me space to do something quite creative and immersive in those windows and not necessarily say yes to certain things, just to feel that I'm creative. Would you say that the characters you've played have changed you in any way? Definitely. How?

1:14:32I've lived many lives. I've died many times. I've had to put myself in other people's shoes a lot. And the interactions beyond the pain and the pleasure of the game pleasure and the joys of those moments. You're in other countries with a whole bunch of interesting creative people that you get to know quite well. You know, I lived in India with Owen and Wes. I didn't even know Owen then and I'm living in a house with Owen and Wes and Jason and bought a Royal Anfield motorcycle and riding around through Jodepur every day and hanging out with these incredibly interesting and funny and creative people and all of us in a life -changing environment, you know, and being in India with so much to be excited about and to experience.

1:15:37And then years later, working with West, for instance, sitting at a dinner table and And they'll be Scarlett Johansson, you know, sharing some wonderful anecdote. And Francis Coppola showing up and you name it, like all these interesting people around you through the work. And all of those stories and experiences that you share and receive are shaping you, each thing you encounter. And so I was joking. It beats working for a living. Have you had to learn any cool skills for parts that you've played? Yeah, I mean, I've, yeah, I've had to fought Jackie Chan in the Gobe Desert. I had to do martial arts choreography.

1:16:26I studied martial arts as a kid. My dad, by the way, used to take me to, he also was a film lover. And he would take me to Chinatown and go to movie theaters on Canal Street in the 70s and 80s and we'd sit in movie theaters watching amazing old run run Shaw martial arts films and I was steeped in that he loved those movies and martial arts films and Scorsese movies shaped creative of, you know, and if you look at clean like this movie that I co -wrote and brought to life that I brought my director, co -writer on board to help me bring to fruition, it really is quite like that. It's quite a kind of 70s revenge movie and it's got hatchet fighting sequences and we I used my, my viewer grand national in the movie and I ended up scoring the whole movie.

1:17:27You should hear it. I did all the original music. I produce a rapper from up in Utica now who I encountered on that movie and I put him on and he's really talented and he's in the movie wrapping and I did all this contemporary music for it. So I'd never really done anything cohesive with my music and that spoke to it. So all of the things that have fed me over the years in my environment growing up in New York City kind of fed this creative work in a way that was quite, quite special. Describe the New York that you grew up in. What was New York like then? I mean, I'm nostalgic. It was great. It was great.

1:18:09We had no cell phones and distractions. I didn't even have a pager that worked until late, you know, but I had freedom. I hung out with all these trouble -maker kids on my block and in the neighborhood and we'd ride around on bikes and I live right near Forest Park so we roll through the park and I lived off to make a avenue and under the elevated train track and we take the train and buy Lucy's at the go to Daga and eat five penny candy, five cent candy and get into trouble. And then that was all as a child. And then you know, then you know, I was break dancing and I had a tail and was getting jumped from my tail and holding it down and grew up with the birth of hip hop.

1:19:07And that fed a lot. And I grew up in Queens when Queens wasn't hot when KRS was you know putting the Bronx on the map and And then I grew up through the times when Queens was hot with Nas and mob deep and 50 and everyone else that followed and had amazing careers and That's all shaped me in a lot of ways and I grew up The son of an artist, photographers, so seeing the world on assignments and she had press plates, so I would be everywhere. You know, it was amazing. It was an amazing childhood. It wasn't easy. It was rough. New York was dangerous. You know, it was a very different time in Manhattan.

1:20:02But it was it had a rawness, it had a poetry to it. And artists could afford to live there. I was surrounded by artists, or artistic people, writers, poets, musicians, theatre actors, photographers, war photographers, and hoodlums, lots of hoodlums, a lot of little clues and all that stuff, which I'm sure, you know, it's still there, but it felt different than it was different, you know, it was different on those trains and then also being little and you know, having to learn through experience. But you ever get into graffiti? Yeah, yeah, I used to write. I mean, I had a lot of, I went to an art school so I had a lot of boys that were super talented, you know.

1:21:03And a lot of my art today is deeply inspired by graffiti and I have my, you know, graffiti culture all woven throughout it. And, you know, taking the trains to school, I observed the interesting qualities of people and I read the walls. I spent every day with headphones on, reading, you know, vibing and reading, who was getting up and who had style and who was prolific. And there's all part of growing up in a city. One of my youngest, closest friends when I was young, we used to get a lot of trouble. He used to live under the train tracks. His sister was a big rider and she was in a crew and they used to go to the train yards and bomb whole train cars then.

1:21:59I'm talking I was like, must have been 10, but I was going, yeah, it was fun. Those were fun days. I used to collect cans with my friend, this kid Chucky and we used to go collect cans to get some extra money and go buy, just buy stuff at the store and take, jump the train and go ride around and just get, nope, nope, you know, my parents let me live. And you could live quite freely then. It was wild, it was great. I love that city. It shaped me. Would you ever consider directing? Yeah, definitely. I have been yearning to direct. I've directed commercials primarily to explore different formats and materials and it's kind of like free film school practice practice yeah working with a crew finding DPs that you like and Experiment with things I shot with On my first commercial that I never didn't even have a real to show I pitched them this idea and I flew myself to Detroit.

1:23:11I met a head of marketing at Chrysler and we met at a film festival and we were talking about film and he had asked me if I had any interest in directing. I said, yeah, and I'm a car nut. I grew up drag racing in Queens too. I neglected to even bring up that whole massive chapter in my life. I built so many muscle cars. I had no money. And so I, all the kids on the block who I related to had muscle cars or knew about mechanical work. And so they would teach me and we'd all have our own muscle cars. And we'd go out on Friday night and the Saturday night and we'd go to like factory blocks in Brooklyn and I'd race these Jamaican dudes with their Toyota Starlets.

1:23:58And I'd pull up in my Mazda RX7. I had seven different RX7s at one point. There was a rotary engines and I'd whip it down the block sideways and Mach 1 Mustangs that I built up and a 70 challenger and so I had shared some of this with This guy and he was like you should do a Commercial with us and he sent me some idea. I didn't think it was Good for them and I didn't take the job and I said I don't think this is good for you for these reasons And he appreciated that and then he gave me another one I said, I have an idea for this one that came and I sat in the boardroom. I think I got up at Cracket Dawn, flew to Detroit, pitched them.

1:24:39And they gave me the gig and it was a super, it was a Golden Globe commercial or they played it the Golden Globes and they loved it. It was quite good. You could look it up as called a rive in style. If you look up Chrysler, a rive in style and I did the VO for them. I directed it as largely black and white. I did it with my friend Gabriel who was a wonderful editor on Brothers Bloom. I met him working with Ryan Johnson and Gabriel, unfortunately, passed away since then, but we made a really beautiful piece. And so long story short, yeah, I'm waiting for the right moment to do it and take the time to do it, you know, because I think it's very important that I have a lot to apply in my life's experiences and my collaborations with people, including my own mother's artistic vision, cinematically, to give.

1:25:37And I definitely know how to communicate with actors. So it's only a matter of time that it'll happen. Yeah. Great. Is there a type of character that you've always wanted to play, but never have gotten to do yet? I love to do a really great, like meaningful love story, like just something where there's just such a deep connection with someone that's intimate and true to life and full of complexity, love and relationships, I think. What's the biggest physical transformation you've ever gone through for a part? I've had two big shifts physically for roles. Obviously the pianist I had to depict a man who experienced starvation.

1:26:28And so I went down to 129 pounds. I was hardly even drinking water towards the first day of production. we shot in reverse chronology, so I was in very good shape too. I'd just done another film before that called Love the Hard Way, and it was one of another favorite film of mine, it's more obscure, but I was fit. I was thin, but I was muscular. And so it was an interesting challenge. How long did it take to lose the weight? I lost about 30, something pounds, 30 something pounds in six weeks. And just not eating or was it more than that? It was mostly not eating. I was eating but very, very sparse specific things.

1:27:18It wasn't particularly healthy and I wasn't taking supplements and I wasn't guided through it and I didn't know kind of what I was doing. And then I had to gain the weight back rapidly so it was kind of forced feeding after which was terrible for my body. I felt sick and I felt, I gained weight in a way that I didn't, like I had a bit of a belly. And I was like, oh my god, I ruined my metabolism. And I managed to kind of have it catch up again, which is good. And then, you know, when I did Predators, I essentially play the Arnold Schwarzenegger character in the film. I play this mercenary character and that's kind of reboot of the franchise.

1:28:03And I thought it would be fun to do a shift. And I thought it would be fun for the guys who were fans of that movie and that genre. And it's kind of unexpected to see me in that role. And so I got Jack for that. It was really great. So I don't know how much I put on. I put on a lot of muscle mass. I think I had less than 6 % body fat. And I was, I was, I put on 20 -something pounds of muscle. It was serious. I was a bad shape in my life. And then I went to India and shot one day on a film and got really ill and lost 15 pounds in a week. Wow. Something like that, literally. I mean, almost that.

1:28:48It eviscerated me. And all again, all that lean muscle mass was gone. Wild. How has your relationship to the craft changed over the course of your life? You know, we are an instrument and you become more proficient at using your instrument for the work that you've applied a lifetime towards. And so my relationship to life has shifted to and I've become more proficient at being less reactive and more attuned and open. And that can be linked to a spiritual awakening and one that is found through work and sacrifice and understanding the valleys as well as the peaks and applying them in your observations of yourself and others.

1:29:59How do you think rhythm influences your performance? Is it a factor? Yeah. Oh yeah.

1:30:12It influences how we are day to day and sometimes you're more in touch with a rhythm and some days you're not, right? And each character you play has a different rhythm from your own. Like on the pianist, I shut down all modern influences, all of it, not just my love for hip hop, but any modern music. I just lived in another era. And I think that was helpful. gave me insight into an understanding of classical music and also the playing of that music and how each time it is played, how differently emotionally that journey is and how it conveys things. Like when I was doing the play, I would have to amp up and we'd do H .O .s a week so two days were with a matinee.

1:31:08And you know, that second performance, you really have to be a lot. You know, and it's a heart -wrenching thing to kind of conjure up all that every day. And I would put on a bunch of trap music and posse one of the actors would come through to the little dressing room, which was like a little center block cell. And we just do pushups and incline pushup, decline pushups, whatever doing like the kind of jailhouse workout. And then he'd bounce and get ready. And then I would put on some John Fashante and kind of meditate in a solumness to tap into that. So I would empower my being and the anger and the frustrations and the hurt and all the stuff that's a man's confined with.

1:32:13And then I would open up the sensitivity that I find in John's work and the morning and longing and creativity. and then I'd go out and step out there and do it. But that every day helped me hone in on those things. And I remember working with Tupac and Mickey doing bullet. And we were under the major dig in the Bronx, in 1993, 96, and a long time ago. And Mickey was the first actor that I worked with who would always use music to get into his own. And he had this Walkman, cassette Walkman. I was actually sitting in the limo, Pox Character had a limo, and I was playing him beats on cassette, of my beats on cassette.

1:33:16And then Mickey was there listening, getting into his own, listening to Stairway to Heaven, and getting into his groove over there. I was, I went bombing with Pock. By the way, you were asking me about writing. We both were tagging this handball court and you can see some of it in the movie and he wrote Thug Life. He didn't have a tattoo on him as of yet and he was writing Thug Life and I caught out of the little burner and there I was like, he took my can and we were bombing together. It was an incredible moment. But yeah, those were good days. Amazing.

1:34:26Mammaja Bir flour. Tetragrammatin is a website. Tetragrammatin is a whole world of knowledge.

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