He’d love to, he says, do something that seems left field, citing David Cronenberg as a random example of a universe he thinks he’d fit into more seamlessly than one might expect. But whatever he chooses to do next, flashes of youthful doubt be damned, he doesn’t find the success so confining any more. “I guess the difference is I’m much, much, much more settled in my life now,” Brody reasons. “I think my sense of self is stronger. And therefore, I’m not as worried of any specific thing defining me.”
This is the kind of clarity that comes with 45, a milestone that he said wasn’t weighing on him too heavily despite the media’s continued fascination with asking questions about a four-year stretch of his early 20s. “It’s like, by the time you turn the next age, you’ve thought about it so much that it already feels like you were that. I’m old enough now where I literally forget how old I am sometimes,” Brody jokes. “It just comes so fast. I feel really good. I mean, if you asked me 10 years ago, 20 years ago, what would your dream be for 40? I swear to God I’d be sitting right here. I feel very, very, very, very lucky and very happy and proud even. Proud to still be here, still be doing it.”
“Also, being this age feels great because so many people I work with now, it’s the second or third or fourth time I’ve worked with them, and I just feel more part of it. It used to be like you’re a kid and the adults are talking, and now it’s like, no, we’re all making it together. It feels like we have the keys. I think you always feel like a kid still, in many ways. And so, it’s the thrill of feeling like a kid, but going, no, we’re all taking the lead now.”
Still, one can’t highlight that he’s in a moment similar to his breakout without acknowledging how things played out back then. It’s easy to make something in a vacuum and be pleasantly surprised by the reaction; repeating the magic trick in the face of preset expectations is a different ballgame. Is the new, content and unbothered Adam Brody feeling any apprehension at all?
“I’ll tell you what,” Brody says only half-jokingly, “I’m going to be pretty self-conscious about where I put my hands.”
