Brady Corbet’s Double Feature

With two releases in theaters this fall, following their synchronized circuit round the film festivals, Brady Corbet already looks set for a solid career. Now if only we could get the 22-year-old to pay for our meal. Kidding(ish). We’ll take a rain check, Brady.

How long have you been acting?

I’ve been acting since I was 7. My family saw an audition ad in a newspaper, but I was too young for the part. As a result, I ended up getting a manager and an agent. I started going out to Los Angeles for long stints, auditioning for movies, and then when I was 12, I did my first movie, Thirteen.

That movie had the whole “underage sex and drugs” situation, and beyond that, most of your work tends to be grimy. Is that a conscious choice?

I’m not looking for anything that’s particularly dark or bleak, but usually that stuff’s meatier and more fun to make than something that’s more frothy.

After those movies, you jumped into TV with 24 and Law & Order. Did leaving film for TV worry you?

That stuff worries me all the time, and I certainly have the opportunity to take that route almost every week, but I don’t particularly like television. I don’t watch any TV shows at all besides cartoons.

You played a Naomi Watts–killing psychopath in Funny Games. Fun times?

That was one of the best moments I’ve had in my professional life. I’d been a fan of Michael Haneke forever. If you’d told me at 16 I’d get to work with Michael, I would’ve thought you were mad, but after that happened, it occurred to me that the things I was really passionate about were actually tangible.

You have two fall releases coming up: Martha Marcy May Marlene, with Elizabeth Olsen, and Melancholia, with Kirsten Dunst. Excited much?  

Both of those movies have been on the same festival circuit this whole last year. In Cannes, Martha was in Un Certain Regard, and Melancholia was in competition, so it was nice having the films do well wherever they go together.

I guess at this point you’re officially “young Hollywood.”

I think if I lived in L.A., I’d feel more like I was a part of young Hollywood, but I’m in New York.

So the chance of a stint in rehab is considerably lessened then?

I feel so completely outside that universe, and I’ve been around it, so it’s not foreign to me. I go out in New York. I’m newly single. But that rare breed like Paris Hilton, who really has her eye on the prize, and I hate to bring her up in that way, I’m sure she’s lovely, but she became famous for nothing in particular, and that’s part of a machine that I really don’t understand.

So you’re not a skanky fame whore?

I’m not gearing up for superstardom. I’m not anti success on a grander scale; if a film I do gets me more publicity than I ever expected, that’s fine. It comes with the territory. The movies I’m doing aren’t big blockbusters, but I’m happy to be recognized for the work I do. It’d just be nice to take my friends out and not have to split the bill. —William Buckley

(This article originally appear in the Fall 2011 issue of ANTENNA.)