Moon Yun Choi reports on the Adrien Brody Q & A at the Maui Film Festival

Father Geek here with our Gal-with-a-finger-on-the-pulse-of-the-happening-scene out in the Pacific Islands, Ms. Moon Yun Choi. This time she's got some great quotes from Academy Award winning actor Adrien Brody for all of us, plus some nice snapshots of the recent Maui Film Festival...

When I first got to the Maui Film Festival, I saw on the celebrity and filmmaker attendance list that Adrien Brody was going to be at the festival as a VIP guest. But I didn’t see him around the festival. In fact, not many people did and we were wondering if he was being reclusive.

Then on the night of the VIP Reception on June 12 held at Spago at the ritzy Four Seasons Resort Maui, I saw him out of the blue at the restaurant with his girlfriend, Michelle Dupont, a sexy petit lady with long, straight blond hair.

He was dressed all in black and looked so cute in his festival baseball cap. I was star struck and really scared to approach him. But I went up to him anyway to ask if I could take a picture. I was so nervous. I called him “Mr. Brady.” I said, “Mr. Brady, may I take your picture?” He had the sweetest smile on his face and just started giggling. He said, “Sure,” and I snapped away.

Then right after I took the photos, I questioned myself, “did I say Brody or Brady? Oh my God, I think I said Brady, as in the Brady Bunch.”

However, by the time Brody took the stage at the Grand Wailea Ballroom the next night to accept an achievement award on behalf of Sir Anthony Hopkins, I mustered enough courage to ask the Oscar winning actor the first question of the audience Q & A segment. And I might add I addressed him by his correct name, this time.

Hopkins, an Oscar winner himself for “Silence of the Lambs,” couldn’t make it to accept the Silversword Award due to family emergency. Brody took time out of his Hawaii vacation to fill in. It was fascinating to hear him speak about the craft of acting and his own personal and professional journey.

The festival showed clips of his work and one of them was a trailer for “Love the Hard Way” that’s currently in limited release...

I asked the actor to describe his role in the movie.

“The character I play is a guy named Jack who’s sort of an asshole but you’ve got to like him in a way because he’s troubled. That’s a perfect example of a leading man who’s complicated and far from perfect,” said Brody. “It’s a story about this young guy who’s a small time hustler in New York. He runs a betting operation with his friends. He runs a scam where they dress up like cops and they rob foreign business men. He has these actresses dress up like prostitutes who lure them up to the room and blackmail them. It’s fun.”

The audience laughs and he gets a chuckle. Then his tone becomes serious when he gets into the love interest.

“A really lovely good girl who’s a college student falls for him and gets wrapped up in his world. He’s lived by this code of being very detached emotionally. Unfortunately a lot of adolescents and a lot of young men get into this pattern where they don’t acknowledge their true feelings for whatever the reasons are -- peer pressure, society or they don’t want to be vulnerable. It’s basically where love steps beyond the boundary and steps into masochism,” Brody said.

He adds: “It’s a very unfortunate thing that happens sometimes. It shows the self destructive quality that young people have. It’s a story where they all come of age and find themselves. This guy really opens up and becomes much more aware of himself as a human being in this process. It’s something that I think a lot of young people can identify with and that a lot of young people consider that we should be less self destructive and we should be thoughtful of one another and a little more sensitive. It reminded me of growing up in New York during my own adolescents. I grew up with a lot of tough kids and you end up toughening up a lot. As an actor it’s not really good because you have to be open and willing to connect and understand other people’s flaws. If you’re closed off, you can’t connect to those things. I’m fortunate to have outgrown it. I feel really good about that.”

Since winning the Best Actor Oscar for “The Pianist,” Brody said he’s been reading a lot of scripts and has been trying to be selective.

“I haven’t selected something because I need to be fully inspired by the material. There are some things in the works but they’re too premature to discuss. There are a lot of offers but they’re not necessarily right. I felt there would be a lot offers that would have been right. I have to wait until I find things that inspire me. I do have another independent film that I did before “The Pianist” that’s going to come out called “Dummy.” I was in another film called “The Singing Detective” that is going to come out next year which is with Robert Downey Jr.”

Emanuel Levy, film professor and film critic, lead the Bravo-style Q & A. While Brody is searching for the right roles for his future projects, he said in the past that he’s been fortunate to find roles that have inspired him.

“I’ve grown tremendously from my experiences. In the case of ‘The Pianist’ I feel that it was such a gift before any of the accolades began because it put so much perspective in my life. It was a tremendous reminder to me about how fortunate I have it and how we have it, especially in America and how much suffering has existed for people and currently exits for so many people. We forget our good fortune. That’s human nature. I’m not saying I’m free of that. It put a lot into perspective. The way it did was that I was exposed to a great deal of sadness and a greater understanding of what it’s like to experience loss in a lot of level,” he said.

“I did a lot of things to make that very realistic for me. As painful as that was, it was discomfort compared to the level of pain and suffering this individual [Wladyslaw Szpilman] felt. Just touching on it on a real level changed me. No matter the outcome of that film, I came out of that a better human being and more of a man,” he said.

Brody added that he felt very blessed that he had that opportunity because there are very few roles that have that kind of impact for an audience, for himself and for the actor. He said that sometimes it’s fine to do things that are just entertainment but the beauty of acting is that it allows the actor an opportunity to understand other human beings in a much greater capacity. It also allows the actor to understand social issues, internal conflicts and relationship issues and

“all kinds of things that if you apply yourself you can really understand things more thoroughly and then understand other people and their motives and understand your own flaws in a better way.” For Brody, “It’s a gift.”

Check out the photos of Brody at the discussion: By Clicking over to My Photo Stash.

I’m back in Honolulu now. The Maui Film Festival ended on June 15 on a successful note. I got to see some other fantastic films: “Only the Strong Survive,” “Dreaming of Tibet,” “American Aloha: Hula Beyond Hawai’i” and “Camp.” There were a lot more films I wish I got to see but I was either too busy with interviewing filmmakers, attending special events or just got too exhausted. I wish I could’ve seen “Small Voices,” “Jet Lag,” “Together,” “Shaolin Soccer” and “Thirteen.” But those films will eventually come into theatres here in the islands.

I learned that “Step Into Liquid” broke the attendance record when it played at the outdoor Tommy Bahama Celestial Cinema on June 12. According to the Festival, 3010 people watched the surf movie. The director, Dana Brown, and world-class waterman including David Kalama and his father Ilma Kalama attended the screening.

I’ll have more on the rest of my experiences at the fabulous MFF on a later report. In the meantime, enjoy the photos of the screenings of “Alex and Emma” and “Whale Rider” by linking to: My Photos @ This Location.

And check out the stars at the Twilight Reception and Spago party: Just Click Right Here.

Until next time, Moon Yun signing out.