Famously Peter Jackson has talked about how King Kong became his obsession ever since as a short trousered schoolboy, he saw the 1933 movie for the first time. But Adrien Brody's first experience of the classic King Kong movie was somewhat different. “I do remember seeing it when I was younger and it having a big impact but somehow I forgot most of the story, aside from the story line with Ann [the film's heroine] and Kong.”
So some homework was necessary before the actor met Peter Jackson to discuss the possibility of him spending the best part of a year in New Zealand working on Jackson's dream of breathing new life into one of the cinema's most iconic characters. “I got a DVD of it [the 1933 movie] and I realised that there were obviously a lot of elements that still hadn't been touched upon. I think it is a fantastic film in a lot of ways, but the characters were too one dimensional and Ann's relationship with Kong wasn't explored as it could be. It will change dramatically. I think too that Kong can be much more human and simultaneously the characters can be much more human,” says Brody. “At the time [in 1933] the movie must have been pretty amazing.”
The actor reflects on how far film technology has advanced since the making of the original King Kong. He points to the masterful way Peter Jackson has used computers to magnify the magic and wonder of the movies. Chuckling he also observes that the science of the cinema will continue to break down new barriers long after Jackson's King Kong.
“What is so exciting about this to me is that I'll show this movie to my grandchildren and it'll be…'Look at how cool I was, how your grandfather was, running through the jungle!' And probably my grand kids will say 'But it looks so fake'.”
In the movie Brody is cast as Jack Driscoll, a role that in 1933 was portrayed by Bruce Cabot and the star stresses that this time round the character is very different from the original film. “There is no comparison really,” he says, pausing before giving a more detailed analysis of the character. “Well he's changed substantially from the original. For the better, I think. The advantage is that he's a much more sensitive human being.”
In Jackson's film the adventurers are on Skull Island to make a movie but there's a drastic change of plan when they accidentally discover that the mysterious island is home to King Kong. The character that Brody portrays is a playwright who is convinced by Denham [Jack Black as an Orson Welles type film director] to write the screenplay for his latest project and is lured on this journey.
“He is more of a thinker rather than a do-er who is then forced to be the do-er and become the man that he's been creating on the page. A more heroic character, someone that he would be creating as opposed to actually being,” says Brody.
“I have based some of my feelings about Jack on Eugene O'Neil and what's interesting is that Jack Driscoll was actually derived somehow from a Eugene O'Neil play. It comes back around and here I am playing a Jack Driscoll which had been taken from Eugene O'Neil and now is embodying certain characteristics of him [O'Neil].”
Quite rightly Brody observes that in the first film the character of Driscoll wa
s more crudely drawn than the more complex figure he's working on. “That guy when it was first made was kind of a lug. I think the journey is far less interesting to watch somebody like that end up battling with all these elements for love when love was barely touched upon in that original. This is a bigger leap for someone to gather his courage to go and do something heroic.”
The movie's big romance is between the characters played by Adrien Brody and Naomi Watts and he has to turn hero after she is captured first by the natives and then by Kong. “I fight for her so I have to have some kind of connection to her. I think the original lacked a bit of that,” he says. “So what we have tried to do is create a level of truth to that, within the context of the time period that this person may be the one for me.
“Everyone else has a different agenda to bring home Kong or to deal with things on that island but my agenda is purely to save this woman who has been brought out here on this mission. And there is the possibility of something in the future for us.”
Winning the Best Actor Academy Award for Holocaust drama The Pianist, placed Adrien Brody smack in the public eye and made him an A-list star. But even before that it was evident that he was a special talent.
It was because he has been willing to tackle exacting and unconventional roles in films like Summer of Sam, The Thin Red Line and, more recently, The Village, that Brody has made his mark in Hollywood.
Brody agrees that his Oscar success changed a lot for him. “Your life changes and people around you change – so how can you be the same person when the world changes!,” he says. “It has changed some things for the better. But I still live a pretty simple life.”
Before arriving in New Zealand for King Kong he said that this project had the potential to be a major landmark. “It probably is going to be life changing for me. Most things seem to be.”