  Actor Adrien Brody arrives to the screening of the film "The Jacket" during the Sundance Film Festival in park City, Utah, Sunday, Jan. 23, 2005 . (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
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PARK CITY, Utah -- In the psychological thriller The Jacket, Adrien Brody plays a man caged, bound and stuffed into the corpse drawer of a hospital morgue.
Brody the actor can relate. Since winning the Academy Award for The Pianist, he's wriggled free of the suffocating career confines that can come with sudden fame and clout. Instead of headlining high-concept blockbusters, he's taken on supporting roles in films such as last year's The Village. Hardly what you'd expect from a gifted performer with the quirky confidence to kiss Halle Berry as he accepted his Oscar. Or a rising star who probably could have inked a lucrative deal for the comic-book movie of his choosing.
"It's a conscious decision to follow my heart and not follow a business strategy," he says while discussing The Jacket at this year's Sundance Film Festival.
"I've done everything for the right reasons. I don't like the (garbage) that comes with being a celebrity and the personal part of that. What I want is to not change who I am just because a lot more is accessible to me ... It's important to try and continue to do good work and excel and do bigger projects, but only if the roles are interesting."
In The Jacket, due for release in the spring, Brody stars as Jack Starks, a Gulf War veteran who after being unjustly convicted of a crime, is committed to a state institution for the criminally insane. Once there, he is subjected to mind-altering experiments that send him on a non-linear, mind-bender -- from past to present to future and back again. The darkly-intense film also stars Keira Knightley as Starks' potential saviour, and Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kris Kristofferson as dubious doctors. To prepare for the part, the native New Yorker spent hours in a sensory deprivation chamber. Think that's dedication?
Brody -- who admits to starving himself for The Pianist -- also underwent a rigorous diet-and-exercise regiment to physically capture "the tremendous stress and institutional food" Starks would experience daily.
"It was a very challenging role and I like challenging roles," he says.
"I've played some interesting characters (in the time since the Oscar). The character in The Village was very liberating. I made that decision without my representatives even reading the script because I promised (director M. Night Shyamalan) that I wouldn't show it to anyone because he's very secretive. I made that decision on my own. There was no group to guide me. I wasn't going to play it safe or wait for the leading man (part). Then I ended up getting the sort of wonderful, iconic role I've always wanted to play, which is the role in King Kong."
Ah, yes. King Kong. Due in December, the epic is Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson's retelling of the classic adventure about a group of renegades who stumble upon the giant titular ape and bring it back alive to New York City. Brody stars alongside Jack Black and, in the role made famous by Fay Wray, Naomi Watts. Needless to say, it's a lot bigger -- and likely a bit more commercial -- than anything else Brody's done.
"I can't say much, nor should I. I'm sure there'll be plenty of time to talk about it. I'll probably be talking about it for a year."
Brody did, however, reveal his character, Jack Driscoll, is a playwright who ends up falling for -- and then trying to save -- the starlet Watts plays.
Brody returns to the New Zealand set of the $150-million US opus this week, right after he announces this year's Oscar nominations tomorrow.
"I'm not excited to be getting up that early, but I am excited to be part of it ... It's more personal than a whole awards ceremony."
Maybe so, but he's unlikely to be locking lips with anyone like he did with Berry in that aforementioned Oscar moment for the ages. It's one that, not surprisingly, he says he's still reminded of.
"I get a lot of (comments). I get a lot of them," he says with a laugh, then adding with an understated smile, "it was fun."
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