Adrien Brody on developing PTSD, eating disorder from method acting role

Adrien Brody took on a near-starvation diet to prepare himself for his role in The Pianist. Photo / Getty Images

Hollywood star Adrien Brody has finally opened up about his gruelling experience starring in Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning 2002 film The Pianist.

In the biographical film, Brody plays Holocaust survivor Władysław Szpilman, a Jewish-Polish pianist living in Warsaw during the Nazi invasion of Poland.

Polanski decided to shoot the movie in reverse, so when starting filming Szpilman would be at his most depleted.

Brody took on a near-starvation diet to prepare himself for the role.

In an interview with New York Magazine’s Vulture, Brody details the lengths he went to physically transform himself for the role.

Method acting has been embraced by a number of actors, including Adrien Brody.

Eating small bits of protein while practising Chopin for hours on end, the actor lost 13 kilograms for the role, dropping his body weight to 58kg.

“That was a physical transformation that was necessary for storytelling,” Brody said. “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.”

By the time they started filming, he had virtually stopped drinking water.

Six weeks before shooting started in Germany, Brody had parted with all of his material possessions, selling his car and apartment and putting his belongings in storage.

Method acting, the process of fully immersing yourself in a character sometimes to extreme lengths, has been embraced by a number of actors, including Brody.

“When he filmed The Jacket, a sci-fi thriller in which he’s sent to a mental institution, he told the director to leave him in a straitjacket so he could get a feel for it,” Vulture recounted.

For the movie Wrecked, he ate ants and worms, playing a character stranded alone in the woods.

In Oxygen, while playing a serial killer with braces, he opted for metal ones rather than a prosthetic option.

“I didn’t know how f*****g painful that was until they stuck in pliers and ripped them off my teeth at the end,” he says.

The extreme style of acting doesn’t come without consequence consequences. The after-effects of Brody’s Oscar-winning performance were long. When asked whether he felt as though he had PTSD from the experience his response was “I do, yeah”.

“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 said. He reportedly had insomnia and panic attacks as a result of filming for The Pianist.

Following the debut of the movie, Brody didn’t work for about a year. However, his father Ellito Brody maintained the break was because “he wasn’t getting anything that was commensurate to what he had just done” rather than anything more sinister.

EATING DISORDERS

Do you need help?
• Get in touch with Eating Disorders Association of New Zealand if you need help finding a private provider in your area by phoning Ph 0800 2 EDANZ or emailing info@ed.org.nz.
If you need urgent help, reach out to your GP or local mental health provider.
Or if you need to talk to someone else:
• Lifeline: 0800 543 354 or 09 5222 999 within Auckland (available 24/7)
• Youthline: Call 0800 376 633, free text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz or online chat.
• Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 (available 24/7)
• Kidsline: 0800 543 754 (available 24/7)

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• Lifeline: Call 0800 543 354 or text 4357 (HELP) (available 24/7)
• Suicide Crisis Helpline: Call 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO) (available 24/7)
• Youth services: (06) 3555 906
• Youthline: Call 0800 376 633 or text 234
• What's Up: Call 0800 942 8787 (11am to 11pm) or webchat (11am to 10.30pm)
• Depression helpline: Call 0800 111 757 or text 4202 (available 24/7)
• Helpline: Need to talk? Call or text 1737
• Aoake te Rā (Bereaved by Suicide Service): Call 0800 000 053
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.