Big Gay Following: Adrien Brody

Adrien Brody does his best to let loose for his gay fans.

By Brandon Voss

From The Advocate December 16, 2008

Adrien Brody is a serious actor. After all, he won an Academy Award for his portrayal in The Pianist of a Polish Jewish musician struggling to survive in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. Not surprisingly, the 35-year-old next stars as the more serious sibling opposite Mark Ruffalo in the seriocomic con artist caper The Brothers Bloom. Brody will, however, lighten up a bit for his gay fans -- just as long as you steer clear of homo hypotheticals. Seriously.

I hope you’re in a good mood today for some silly gay questions.
I’m in a good mood, but let’s see if I’m still in a good mood at the end.

We’ll ease into it. Are you aware of your gay following?
Well, I’ve lived in West Hollywood, Chelsea, and right off Christopher Street -- all largely gay neighborhoods -- and I was aware of a number of people there who were fans of mine, so I guess that’s a nice thing. You’re aware of it?

Sure. Let’s talk about 1997’s The Last Time I Committed Suicide, in which you played a character patterned after gay beat poet Allen Ginsberg.
You know, that’s so funny, because [my publicist] sent me an e-mail about possible interview topics like gay roles, and I thought, I haven’t really had the opportunity to play a gay role. But yes, I did. I forgot about it; it was so long ago. Let’s talk about it.

How did Ginsberg’s sexuality inform your performance?
Obviously the character had an intense physical attraction to the character based on Neal Cassady, but Neal didn’t share the same feelings. As an actor, an emotion is an emotion regardless of who it’s for. It’s challenging to do any role where there’s a great deal of physical intimacy, but I haven’t had to deal with that [opposite another man].

What conversations did you have with director Spike Lee about your character Richie’s sexuality in Summer of Sam?
[Laughs] Spike doesn’t like to discuss those things. I think Spike would probably have a different point of view from mine. Richie was a guy who was all about experimenting and exploring, breaking all the things that were imposed on him by society. Spike didn’t particularly have a ton of direction with that, but I think Richie’s homosexual encounters were purely based on monetary gain. He was selling himself. The character was based on a person that I knew, but I don’t think that he was really attracted to men; he was basically just willing to do whatever was necessary.

Did you go to any seedy gay clubs to prepare for the role?
I did hang out in that world. But, I mean, I’ve gone to gay bars before. It’s not like that’s something I would only enter for a role. Obviously I’m not there to pick up anybody, but I’m not afraid to hang out in a predominantly gay establishment.

At 13, you made your acting debut in the off-Broadway play Family Pride in the Fifties as a working-class kid who wants to be a ballet dancer. Did you think that character was gay?
Oh, good, you did some research! A part of the conflict there was that the father struggles with his son’s sensitivity. I was very young, so I guess I didn’t give it enough thought, but perhaps he was a gay character as well. We’re racking ’em up. [Laughs] I once had an opportunity to play a transvestite who wasn’t gay and was actually somewhat homophobic. It was a very complex story, but the script wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be. It would’ve been challenging, but part of what attracted me to the material was how difficult it was.

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Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

Name: Emily
Date posted: 2009-05-20 7:26 PM
Hometown: Scranton

Comment:

I don't understand how he came off as homophobic. The questions were not thoughtful, intellectual ones. They were asinine, "Would u ever hook ^ w./ a dude???" sort of questions. Up until the end I was amazed how composed he stayed, everytime the journalist asked a question I braced myself for Brody to give him a well-deserved snappy response, and he didn't, until the questions became completely stupid and silly. And the journalist was trying to show Brody's "sense of humor"? Explain to me how discussing homosexuality is a quick and easy way of displaying someone's "sense of humor"? That proved that the interviewers questions were complete jokes, that homosexuality is something at least borderline-funny to him, which is many, many times more ignorant than any quote i have ever heard of brody's, in or out of this specific interview

Name: Stuart Sandler
Date posted: 2008-12-01 2:15 PM
Hometown: Spring Hill, FL

Comment:

There was a time, a fair while ago, when the Advocate won mainstream awards for their journalism and magazine content and was being taken as seriously in many circles as Times and Newsweek for it's content. What Mr. Voss has accomplished, as have others before him, is reverting to a mostly sexually based and focused interview, rather than one with questions regarding attitudes towards orientation, what he sees as an 'outsider' to the gay community, etc. Would Ebony harp on his sexual attraction to Afro-Americans? Maybe it's being past my '20s when penises were so much in the forefront of my mind, but I would like to see once again the focus being the personal opinions and experiences of the interviewee rather than what appears to be the voyeristic tendencies of the interviewer.

Name: Mark Sherman
Date posted: 2008-11-27 3:09 AM
Hometown: Chicago

Comment:

Seriously. This interview made me uncomfortable. Mr. Voss pushed the envelope too far with Mr. Brody. As a reader, it's obvious that Adrien Brody is respectful to the gay community, and he presented himself as a very gay-friendly heterosexual man. However, Brandon Voss disrespected Mr. Brody when he made a distasteful reference to the size of his penis. Yuck.... How embarrasing to read how our national gay news magazine would insult a gay-friendly celebrity during an interview. In the future, close your mouth, pull your bib and knee pads off, and please only insult the big-dicked (and little-dicked) non-gay-friendly people during interviews, and leave the gay-friendly people with a reason to still remain gay-friendly to our community. Let's try not to be such trolls to gay-friendly straight men. Thanks.

Name: JJ
Date posted: 2008-11-22 7:22 PM
Hometown: Hempstead

Comment:

For years I was a Contributing Writer for The Advocate, and I can thus confirm that the editors (and writers) there have always been obsessed with gay sex. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, or that it should be surprising!) Back in the early '90's, in fact, we reporters were told to ask upfront if an interviewee was gay. The Advocate was the first major national publication, I believe, to make that a legitimate question. (Madonna was the first to answer it, as I recall.) That said, this is a cringe-making interview. Brody takes himself way too seriously, but on the other hand the interviewer seems to be beating about the bush too much. If he had just asked, "Are you Gay?" he could have gotten on with some more interesting questions about acting and celebrity and stuff. Furthermore, I think that whole "gay following" thing is becoming very -- very -- tired. Even George W. Bush has a gay following, but I don't find that particularly endearing.

Name: randy
Date posted: 2008-11-20 2:31 PM
Hometown: hollywood

Comment:

Herein lies the problem with gay journalism—it is a predictably small range of topics, and in this case and I fear it was the interviewer feeling that he had run out of ideas, turned to bad taste. Mr. Voss did his homework. He knew a great deal about his subject and his work. When his gay content ran out, so did good taste. Asking every actor questions that might lead to some headline-worthy reaction is simply dumb. It also turns out to be caveat for any actor considering granting an interview to the gay press. Brody seems like a very intelligent, thoughtful actor who isn't in the interview for nonsense. A good interviewer should know that.

Name: Daryl
Date posted: 2008-11-20 2:11 PM
Hometown: Nashville

Comment:

Part of being a good interviewer is to be able to gauge the interviewee and his disposition. I could see how some of the question were meant in fun, but as Adrien said he is a "serious person" which is OK. In knowing this one realizes that is sense of humor may not be as broad as others therefore don't go there. I think even when someone is being interviewed for a gay publication it's fine to ask guestions to try and get a sense of what their perspectives are on the aspectives of being gay both personnal and professional, but one has to remember for whatever reason some people feel more comfortable about talking about personnal aspect of themselves than others. Mr. Brody seems like someone who be great to work with and would give the best possible performance he could no matter what the role.

Name: AB
Date posted: 2008-11-20 2:07 PM
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY

Comment:

Big Gay Following has never been a serious section of the magazine. The questions are always this lighthearted. Everytime it is straight celeb, they are asked some variant of "who would you make an exception for?" Brody's publicist, at the very least, should have prepared him better. He sounds like a jackass by the end of this interview That said, it would be nice if The Advocate, I don't know, didn't just put any old celebrity in this column. I mean, does Adrien Brody really have a big gay following? Be a little selective, and don't just bend over for any celebrity will to do it. It was a disgrace, for example, that The Advocate did a Big Gay Following column on Patrick Dempsey (conveniently, for him, just as Made of Honor was coming out) but accepted his condition that no questions about the T.R. Knight/Isaiah Washington controversy be asked.

Name: AB
Date posted: 2008-11-20 2:00 PM
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY

Comment:

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