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Adrien Brody got slapped by a besotted chimpanzee

Adrien Brody recalls story of chimpanzee that 'fell in love' with him credit:Bang Showbiz
Adrien Brody recalls story of chimpanzee that 'fell in love' with him credit:Bang Showbiz

Adrien Brody had a co-star that "fell in love" with him - an amorous chimpanzee.

The 48-year-old actor met the female chimp to a photo shoot around the time he was promoting Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of 'King Kong' about the giant gorilla.

Adrien says the great ape would "slap" him in the face to "laugh" at his reaction and wouldn't leave him alone.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, he recalled: "She fell in love with me. She would slap me in the face, laugh at my reaction and do backflips. Then slap me again. I liked it.

"I held her hand to walk her back to the car."

After being asked if they kept in touch, Adrian quipped: “It’s terrible. I swore I would but I didn’t.”

Another thing that ‘The Pianist’ star loved was guest starring in the third season of ‘Succession' - the HBO drama starring Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin and Sarah Snook - as tech billionaire Josh Aaronson, a shareholder in Waystar Royco.

Of getting into character for the guest, Adrian said: “I know billionaire types and it’s not about the ego so much. It’s the power. And a sense of control.

“I don’t think they’re going anywhere. Go to Cannes, you will encounter those people.”

Adrian thinks he “the wrong person to ask” about how fame changes as person as he has kept his lifestyle untainted by the job after hitting it big.

He said: "Oh, I don’t think about it. I’m the wrong person to ask. I don’t play the game. I moved to upstate New York at the height of my career, bought an old pick-up truck and repointed my home [a sort of castle] while hiding and waiting for the phone to ring.”

The ‘French Dispatch’ star “never wanted to retreat from work” but instead wanted to avoid “fame” and the “superficiality” of Hollywood.

Adrian said: I could retreat from the fame. And I did. I retreated from a superficiality that comes with it. Or an ease of access to things that felt inauthentic and wasn’t the path of my life growing up. It felt dishonest. I could say, ‘I like that watch!’ And they’d give it to me.” That made you uncomfortable? “I had worked my whole life in order to afford that watch. But why? It was a strange thing.”