Adrien Brody

Born: 14 April 1973
Where: New York, New York

The actor was catapulted onto the international stage when he was the surprise best actor Oscar winner for the Holocaust drama The Pianist.

Almost from his debut performance in 1988 as an orphan in Home At Last, Brody has earned his reputation as someone to watch.

He began acting at camp as a child but first found some notoriety as the subject of photos taken by his mother, famed photographer Sylvia Plachy.

And it was when she was commissioned to shoot at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts that Brody enrolled in the school's young people's weekend programme.

The aspiring actor soon made his debut on stage and moved onto a handful of small film roles, before getting his break in 1993 with King Of The Hill.

It wasn't long before Brody found himself attracting plaudits for his lead performance as a gambler in Sweet Jersey.

He seemed to be on the verge of stardom after landing the coveted role of Corporal Fife in The Thin Red Line, starring Woody Harrelson, Sean Penn, John Travolta, George Clooney and Nick Nolte.

However, his part was edited down to little more than a cameo, an insult only compounded by the amount of advance press his starring role had received.

Undaunted, he went on to star in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam and Ken Loach's social drama Bread & Roses.

His breakthrough role came in the form of Roman Polanski's The Pianist, a part which won him a shock Oscar for Best Actor.

As a Polish Jew who bears witness to Nazi atrocities (thanks to his musical talents) and desperately attempts to escape, Brody delivered a memorably melancholic performance.

In 2003, he appeared in the big screen remake of Dennis Potter's Singing Detective and subsequently a doomed resident of M Night Shyamalan's The Village.

In 2005, Brody played a damaged Gulf War veteran in The Jacket opposite Keira Knightley and played playwright Jack Driscoll in Peter Jackson's £130m remake of King Kong.