Today's Star: Actor Adrien Brody Discusses His TV Miniseries "Houdini"

NBC ID: ARFYAADYX5 | Media Type: Aired Show | Air Date(s): 08/25/2014 | Event Date(s): 08/25/2014

Transcript

Event Date(s): 08/25/2014 | Event Location(s): Today New York Studio | Description: EJ: CLIP (HISTORY): Clip from the miniseries “Houdini” with actors including Adrien Brody. Hall interviews Brody live in-studio: “TAMRON HALL: Oscar winner Adrien Brody stars as the great Harry Houdini in the new two night miniseries on History. Take a look. (Excerpt from Houdini) TAMRON HALL: And Adrien Brody is with us. Good morning. Good to see you. ADRIEN BRODY: All the best. TAMRON HALL: So I was watching and told you multitasking. And the minute-- that's how it starts-- and I stopped doing everything and spent the rest of my afternoon yesterday with you watching this. It’s tremendous. Congratulations. ADRIEN BRODY: Thank you. It’s very exciting. TAMRON HALL: It is exciting. ADRIEN BRODY: Yeah. TAMRON HALL: What drew you to this project? You’re such an intriguing person in so many levels. And I wondered what was it about Harry Houdini that caught you? ADRIEN BRODY: You know I had a real fascination with magic at a very young age. And he is one of the people that inspired me on a-- on a pretty profound level for a young person. I didn’t understand the complexity of his life at that time. But what he symbolizes still resonated with me as a boy. TAMRON HALL: When you say what he symbolized, what is that? ADRIEN BRODY: You know, he is-- first of all, in doing the research to understand him better. He’s the epitome of the American dream. He is someone who’s not only escaped the confines of the physical shackles, but the shackles that keep down the impoverished people. TAMRON HALL: He was an underdog. ADRIEN BRODY: He was-- he was an eastern European immigrant. He overcame all these things and he escaped that. And he represented that to people that-- that is possible. And that’s a very heroic thing beyond the other aspects of-- of the amazing stunts that he performed. What he represented I think resonated, especially at that time, at the turn of the century there was still a great deal of-- we still have a lot of poverty unfortunately, but there was a tremendous, you know, working class that really identified with him. TAMRON HALL: Absolutely. And you had people just looking for that one way to escape, to get out of that poverty-- ADRIEN BRODY: Yes. TAMRON HALL: -- if we can use the word escape in this way. And he-- he did just that. And what I thought was amazing as well about this miniseries is it really dug into his life and what motivated him and also the challenges. There’s a scene, and not to give too much away, where at some point, he looks on in the audience and no one is there and he’s got to step his game up. What was that like pushing the limits in watching how he struggled? ADRIEN BRODY: Oh, he’s very driven. He was-- he was probably more driven than anybody I’ve met with, you know-- may be with the-- without the exception of Roman Polanski. But I mean, he was such a driven human being. And he was an inventor. He created all of these things. He created-- he understood marketing more than anybody. At that time in history this man was making an announcement and what they reference in that clip was he’s making announcement and then everybody would show up to check him out. And then all of a sudden, he developed all these people, you know, fans and awareness. Say I’m going to jump off a bridge and there he was. TAMRON HALL: I kept thinking as well when I was watching, what if he were around with Twitter, Instagram, (unintelligible) can you imagine? ADRIEN BRODY: Oh, yeah. He would be a big sensation stuff today. I mean, I think he still is in a way. TAMRON HALL: Yeah. He is. ADRIEN BRODY: I mean it’s remarkable for-- it was him and Charlie Chaplin and that’s about it. TAMRON HALL: Now I understand and as you pointed out you were a magician as a kid and someone told me that you were willing to try and do little trick for me?. What have you got? ADRIEN BRODY: This is what happens when you have any-- TAMRON HALL: You have it? Are you ready? Adrien Brody is going to-- ADRIEN BRODY: Oh, my goodness. TAMRON HALL: Where’s your-- ADRIEN BRODY: You know what? Someone handed me a pencil so that I could do one of my childhood magic tricks. TAMRON HALL: Let’s see what is it. ADRIEN BRODY: We live in a new world today. Nobody has a pencil anymore. We have carry an iPhone around it. TAMRON HALL: Okay, here we go. Drum roll. ADRIEN BRODY: Okay, are you ready to be my trusty assistant? TAMRON HALL: Okay. ADRIEN BRODY: Okay. TAMRON HALL: Will I lose a limb? ADRIEN BRODY: Not if you’re careful and-- and do what I tell you. TAMRON HALL: Okay. ADRIEN BRODY: So you have to told this very tightly. TAMRON HALL: Okay. ADRIEN BRODY: And what I’ll do is-- angle it so that people can see it. TAMRON HALL: All right. ADRIEN BRODY: I will attempt-- TAMRON HALL: Matt’s watching. The pressure is on. Matt Lauer is trying to copy. Come over, Matt to make sure that this is all authentic. ADRIEN BRODY: This is an ordinary dollar bill. TAMRON HALL: Okay. ADRIEN BRODY: This is an ordinary number to pencil. TAMRON HALL: Okay. ADRIEN BRODY: I will now attempt to break this pencil with a dollar bill. TAMRON HALL: Have you done this since you were twelve? ADRIEN BRODY: I haven’t done this since I was eleven. But-- so don’t move. TAMRON HALL: Okay, I won’t move. Okay. ADRIEN BRODY: I’m not as accurate. TAMRON HALL: Here we go. ADRIEN BRODY: Okay. Okay. You have to focus. TAMRON HALL: Okay. Here we go. Focus. Come on. ADRIEN BRODY: You have to harness your energy into it. Really, it has to be-- kind of knife’s edge. TAMRON HALL: Here we go. ADRIEN BRODY: Ready? TAMRON HALL: Ready. ADRIEN BRODY: Focus, focus, focus. MATT LAUER: We’re all getting sucked in on that psycho. TAMRON HALL: We’re getting sucked in. Now, here we go. You’re going to try one more time. Okay. Oh. This is TODAY on NBC. Go, Adrien. Nice, man. Focus.” Brody does his magic trick (breaking the pencil in half by hitting it with a dollar bill) as Lauer watches looking amazed and Lauer and Brody high five.

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August 25, 2014
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