Adrien Brody has reflected on the “public embarrassment” he faced after having his role cut from one of the most acclaimed films of the 1990s.
The actor, who is currently receiving huge praise for his role in Brady Corbet’s “masterpiece” and awards frontrunner The Brutalist, was cast as the lead character in Terrence Malick’s war epic The Thin Red Line two years before its release in 1998.
At the time, this was a big coup for the then 23-year-old actor, considering that the role of Corporal Geoffrey Fife (the main character in James Jones’s novel of the same name) was sought after by many other stars.
However, upon sitting down to watch the film at the premiere, Brody was stunned to discover he had been reduced to a background character by Malick’s edit; the film was re-cut to centre on Jim Caviezel’s character Private Witt instead.
Having believed he was the lead role, Brody appeared in just five minutes of the three-hour-long film.
In a new interview, the actor addressed the experience, confirming that he “didn’t know the role had been eviscerated” – and revealing he is “kind of grateful” for how things went down.
“I was always kind of grateful that The Thin Red Line was such a harrowing experience for me and full of personal loss,” Brody told GQ Hype.
“There was public embarrassment and potential career disaster affiliated with all of that – I didn’t know that the role had been eviscerated. Then I looked back and I thought, ‘How lucky I am that I averted acclaim and praise at that age.’”
Brody did not let the incident deter him, though, and soon bounced back with 2002 film The Pianist, which saw him become the youngest star to win Best Actor at the Oscars.
Badlands and Tree of Life filmmaker Malick is infamous for re-angling his films without alerting its lead stars. While Brody remained in the film, with just a few lines of dialogue surviving, Mickey Rourke, Bill Pullman and Lukas Haas were cut completely.
Other stars who were set to appear in the film, but were dropped ahead of production, included Martin Sheen, Viggo Mortensen and Gary Oldman.
Billy Bob Thornton also recorded hours of narration, which was eventually cut from the finished movie.
The actor is in line for an Oscar nomination for his role in The Brutalist, which won Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director for Brady Corbet at the Golden Globes on 5 January.
The film, set over 30 years, explores the life of László Tóth (Brody), a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who survived the Holocaust and, after emigrating to the US with his wife (Felicity Jones), crosses paths with the mysterious Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), who changes the course of his life.
Corbet, whose previous credits includeThe Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux, spent seven years making the 215 minute-long epic, which was shot in 70mm to “reflect the widescreen experiences of its 1950s setting” and comes with a 15-minute intermission. He co-wrote the film with The World to Come director Mona Fastvold.
The film will be released in the UK on 24 January.
