Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Adrien Brody: "I would love to brag, but I can't incriminate myself"

That crazy jet set: too much money, too much ennui. From the  August 2004 Details:

"A few weeks before (this interview), in a brief period where (Adrien Brody) was not under contract (after filming The Jacket with Kiera Knightley and before starting King Kong with Naomi Watts), he took part in what he calls a major, major, major mission -- the Gumball 3000, an annual six-day road rally, which this year ran from Paris to Madrid to Marbella to Casablanca to Barcelona to Cannes.

"The field of 330 entrants included 60 Ferrari's; nine members of the Saudi Royal family; the skateboarder Tony Hawk; a Citroen 2CV painted like the General Lee; a contingent from the Asian equivalent of Jackass, driving a Winnebago equipped with a Jacuzzi filled with Cup O Noodle soup; and a London Taxi whose meter recorded ($16,553) fare by the finish line. Officially the Gumball 3000 is not a race, but the King of Morocco, who entered participants at his palace when the rally arrived on his shores, graciously announced that during their stay he would suspend all speed limits. The aftereffects of such unusual driving license were felt the next day, when Spanish policia enforced the law of their land by levying more than 50,000 euros in fines and tickets.

"Brody started the Gumball poorly, getting lost in his loaner Porsche 911 turbo and arrived in Madrid 14 and a half hours behind everyone else. But on the last day, he left Barcelona in the middle of the night to avoid the Spanish authorities and crossed the finish line five hours before anyone else, a circumstance that caused uninitiated journalists to report that he had won the race.

"'Technically it's not a race,' Brody says, 'but people do drive fast." I ask if people go, I don't know, 120. 'Oh, people exceed that,' he says, 'way over that. Hell, yeah.' My tape recorder registers a long silence. 'I would love to brag, but I can't incriminate myself."

 






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