The son of Hungarian-born photojournalist Sylvia Plachy and retired history teacher Elliot Brody, Adrien grew up an only child in Woodhaven, Queens, where he accompanied his mother on assignments for the Village Voice. He credits her with making him feel comfortable in front of the camera. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts in New York. Despite a strong performance in Thin Red Line, The (1998), time constraints forced the director to edit out much of Adrien's part. In spite of his later work with Spike Lee and Barry Levinson, he never became the star many expected he would become...until Roman Polanski called on him to play a celebrated Jewish pianist in the Nazi-occupied Warsaw. He pulled off a brilliant performance in Pianist, The (2002) drawing on the heritage and rare dialect of his Polish grandmother, as well as his father, who lost family members during the Holocaust, and his mother, who fled Communist Hungary as a child during the 1956 revolution against Russia.