Brody, Adrien (1973– )

US actor. In 2003 he became the youngest person ever to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, for his role in the Roman Polanski film The Pianist (2002). Other films include Summer of Sam (1999), The Singing Detective (2003), and The Village (2004).

Brody was born in New York City and attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and High School for the Performing Arts. His film debut was in Steven Soderbergh's drama King of the Hill (1993). His subsequent films include Angels in the Outfield (1994), The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997), The Undertaker's Wedding (1997), Six Ways to Sunday (1997), and The Thin Red Line (1998); but it was The Pianist, in which he played brilliant pianist Wladyslaw Spzilman, a Polish Jew desperately struggling to survive the Holocaust, that launched him to stardom.