Guy Ferrandis/Focus Features/Studio Canal/Kobal/Shutterstock
Adrien Brody in The Pianist
Adrien Brody revealed that his Oscar-winning performance in Roman Polanski’s 2003 biographical drama The Pianist took a massive toll on his body.
In an interview with Vulture, published Dec. 23, the 51-year-old actor revealed that he developed an eating disorder and suffered PTSD after taking on the role.
Brody portrayed Holocaust survivor Władysław Szpilman in the film, and prepared for the role by adopting a near-starvation diet in order to lose 30 lbs. and drop his weight to 129 lbs. Additionally, the star “was barely drinking water by the time they started filming.”
“That was a physical transformation that was necessary for storytelling,” he told the outlet. “But then that kind of opened me up, spiritually, to a depth of understanding of emptiness and hunger in a way that I didn’t know, ever.”
Brody admitted that there were long-term effects of that physical transformation, dealing with insomnia, panic attacks and PTSD from the experience.
“I definitely had an eating disorder for at least a year,” he added. “And then I was depressed for a year, if not a lifetime. I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”
Moviestore/Shutterstock
Adrien Brody in The Pianist
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Brody is no stranger to method acting and said he typically goes to extreme lengths to prepare for a movie.
“When he filmed The Jacket, a sci-fi thriller in which he’s sent to a mental institution, he told the director to leave him in a straitjacket so he could get a feel for it,” Vulture recounted. “He broke his nose when someone accidentally punched him in the face during the filming of Summer of Sam, giving him a permanent dent.”
For Wrecked, Brody actually ate ants and worms while portraying a character who is stranded in the woods. And for his role in Oxygen, he got metal braces for his character instead of prosthetics.
“I didn’t know how fucking painful that was until they stuck in pliers and ripped them off my teeth at the end,” he said.
Brody’s latest work is in The Brutalist, the A24 film in which he plays Hungarian-Jewish architect László Toth, who survives the Holocaust and emigrates to the U.S. to find work.
On Dec. 3, the New York Film Critics’ Circle awarded him with the Best Actor prize for his performance.
Read the original article on People