Two months after winning Best Actor for The Brutalist Adrien Brody seems to be taking no chances with his next act — and no, it’s not a prestige TV role or a fragrance campaign. Instead, he’s deep in glue, glitter, and Donald Duck.
Brody’s debut solo art exhibition, Made in America, is now open at Eden Gallery in New York through June 28. It features a riot of pop culture ephemera — Mickey Mouse, Basquiat crowns, and cut-outs of Marilyn Monroe — and a surprisingly earnest homage to New York’s most maligned creatures. “I always felt for the rats and the mice that I would see in the subways on the way to school,” he told Cultured. “How everybody would be disgusted.”
It’s a curious, slightly chaotic pivot — and maybe a strategic one. While the so-called “Best Actor Curse” doesn’t officially exist, its counterpart does. The “Best Actress Curse” has haunted winners from Sandra Bullock to Halle Berry, with a pattern of public breakups and personal upheaval following their wins. (Both actresses split from their partners within months of taking home their statues. Reese Witherspoon and Hilary Swank faced similar fates.)
Brody, by contrast, is staying close to his partner Georgina Chapman — yes, that Oscars gum moment was real — and pouring his post-awards energy into canvas. One piece even sold for $425,000 at the amfAR Cannes Gala. “Yes, people will come because it’s him,” Eden Gallery CEO Guy Klimovsky told The New York Times, “but they will forget. The artworks are rich. They’re interesting. They have a story.”
Critics are less convinced. Artnet called the work “faux naïve” and questioned the buzz. But Brody doesn’t seem bothered. “I’m an unemployed actor at the moment,” he joked. “If I don’t do it now, I won’t do it for another long period of time.”
No dramatic breakup. No career freefall. Just rats, Marilyn, and a self-portrait in a Basquiat crown. If this is how Brody dodges a curse, it’s the most visually chaotic insurance policy in town.
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