Up to no good as a subversive human gene cloning biochemist in Splice isn’t the only predicament lately for Adrien Brody. During this conversation about blockbusters, designer beards and digitalized creature discomforts, the Woodhaven homeboy and star of The Pianist and Cadillac Records discussed being into a little personal makeover of his own, transforming from artsy to action-oriented in films. Brody, who will be working next on a feature about the notorious siege at Waco, also confessed to going undercover as an audience member at a Splice screening, and being outed later on a blog for laughing at his own movie.
Q: Hey, great new fancy looking beard you’re trimming there. What’s your secret?
ADRIEN BRODY: Yeah, it’s called a razor blade! And then you gotta shave it off every week, and re-grow it. Scissors also can work!
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Q: Well, about this movie. I’m not the most scientific person around…
AB: Nor am I!
Q: But Splice makes the world of science seem completely insane.
AB: It’s crazy! And I’m surprised, and at the same time I’m not. We live in a world that really borders on science fiction already. I mean, they can already create a child from three parents and two mothers. Hey, two mothers, that’s really strange. So we’re delving into science fiction already.
Even genetically modified foods—that’s crazy. It’s a crazy concept to create the perfect food. And that will then destroy our idea of all the rest of the fruits. So it’s kind of happening already. Yeah, there’s a lot of meddling that goes on. I mean, all of a sudden you’re changing the face of the Earth.
And it also pushes moral and ethical boundaries. So I’m very proud of this movie; it’s very original, even the moments that are completely absurd. And stuff that is so wrong, you can’t help but laugh! Check this out: I brought some of my friends to see it at Sundance. And we were in the back row, howling. First of all, because they’d never seen me in something like this. And they’d never seen me do such…immoral acts. In a film! So we were laughing hysterically. Then I read somewhere, on some blog online, that people were laughing at all the wrong moments during the screening. And it was me and my friends!
But it comes from being so shocking and amusing at the same time. And that’s wonderful, if you can get that out of people. You know, that they don’t even know why they’re laughing! And this movie kind of throws all our serious moral and ethical concerns about genetic research, out of the window. That’s kind of disturbing—and I love it! You know, when they made Frankenstein, you never really imagined that really happening. And that’s part of what makes this film so exciting and scary, because of how close it’s linked to our present and very near future. And scientific research is progressing at such an alarming rate, it’s impossible to know what will happen next.
Q: How would you describe Splice, because it doesn’t seem to fit too neatly into any category?
AB: No, it doesn’t. And that’s kind of what I look for! To find films that are hard to define and characters that are hard to define. And this movie has those classic sci-fi thriller elements, but at the same time, there’s all kinds of other things happening here. And in life, even in tragic moments, there’s humor. It can come from an overwhelming sense of anxiety, and that can lead to something feeling funny, even if it’s inappropriate. So yeah, laughter is good. And that’s what I love about Splice. It’s very unique. And the characters, I think, are all pretty powerful and unique, and you’re watching very complicated people making mistake after mistake that ruins their whole life, and strangely, fun to watch. Like when I watch this movie, I have a kind of nervous laughter. And like you learn in school, you’re not supposed to be laughing at stuff like that. But I’m watching things that I know what’s coming is terrible, but it’s…pretty funny! You know, just to watch people make these awful mistakes. And that creature Dren, that Sarah and I create, it’s an amazing, amazing, modern day Frankenstein. An amazing creature. And very nuanced. She’s strange and beautiful, and also very animalistic. It’s just amazing.
