On Nov. 21 actor Adrien Brody spoke to an audience following an advance screening of director Roman Polanski's latest film, The Pianist, presented by Back Stage West at Harmony Gold Theatre in Los Angeles. The event was part of a series of special screenings Back Stage West is hosting throughout the awards season.
Brody, who portrays a real-life Holocaust survivor, the late Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, began the interview by saying, "I felt a tremendous responsibility with this role—more than any other film that I've worked on." Brody's film credits include The Thin Red Line, Summer of Sam, Liberty Heights, Bread and Roses, and King of the Hill.
The Pianist is Polanski's most personal film to date, depicting what happened to the hundreds of thousands of Jews forced to live in the Cracow Ghetto during the Nazi's occupation of Poland in World War II. Polanski escaped the Warsaw Ghetto at the age of 7 and went on to direct such classics as Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, and Tess. The Pianist won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival and was recently named one of the 10 best films of 2002 by the National Board of Review.
Brody described the grueling process he went through to prepare for the part, including losing 30 pounds in six weeks, working with a dialect coach, learning to play the piano in sync with a professional musician's recordings, and researching historical information pertinent to his character.
The film was shot in reverse chronology, beginning with scenes depicting his character's most dire state—nearly starving to death. On his first day of shooting, he had to climb a wall and could barely do it once, let alone the five times required for Polanski and his crew to get the shot.
"I could hardly make it over the wall because my muscles were gone," shared the actor. "I cried. It wasn't really acting, and that's what Roman wanted. I guess it's easier in a sense when you go there because you don't have to act. You just have to make it through the day. That was Day One. There were six more months ahead of me."
As Brody concluded, the experience of making The Pianist profoundly affected him, both as an actor and as a person. He said, "It inspired me. It made me stronger. It made me a little more aware. I learned a tremendous amount. It's been a wonderfully enlightening experience, and that's really rare."
The next event will be a Dec. 12 screening of Adaptation. with Chris Cooper at the DGA Theatre in Los Angeles. This free event is already completely full, but look for more Back Stage West special screening announcements in upcoming issues.