Adrien Brody Makes Broadway Debut in 'Fear of 13'
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- Adrien Brody is making his Broadway debut at the James Earl Jones Theatre in 'The Fear of 13,' a drama about Nick Yarris, a Pennsylvania man who spent 20+ years on death row for a rape and murder he maintains he did not commit.
- Lindsey Ferrentino adapted the play from a 2015 documentary by British filmmaker David Sington; the show transferred to Broadway after a celebrated West End run.
- Brody says his biggest challenge wasn't acting but staying focused amid live-audience distractions — coughing, phones, snacks — and revealed producers asked him to stop waving to the real Yarris from the stage, a note he plans to ignore.
- Brody credits his girlfriend Georgina Chapman and friend Anna Wintour with pushing him toward Broadway; he hadn't done theater since age 12 and hasn't made a film since 'The Brutalist.'
- Ferrentino says the real Yarris has been 'invaluable' to the process — attending most performances and staying 'hands-off' during the writing, waiting to see the play until its London run, where he held her hand and cried audibly.
- Ferrentino also wrote 'The Queen of Versailles,' which opened last year but closed quickly; she says she's grateful to have a serious play and a musical in the same Broadway season.
Why it matters: Ferrentino argues the American audience can't maintain the 'critical distance' London viewers had, because the U.S. still uses the death penalty — making this Broadway transfer a more immediate, complicit confrontation with the justice system. The production also marks a notable stage return for Brody, who hasn't made a film since 'The Brutalist,' and puts Yarris' decades-long story in front of a New York audience for the first time.
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