Coordinates | 28°36′36″N77°13′48″N |
---|---|
name | Russell Brand |
birth name | Russell Edward Brand |
birth date | June 04, 1975 |
birth place | Grays, Essex, England, UK |
medium | Stand-up, television, film, radio |
nationality | British |
active | 1994–present |
influences | Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks,Peter Cook, Lenny Bruce,Tony Hancock, Jack Kerouac, Stewart Lee |
spouse | Katy Perry (2010–present) |
website | }} |
After successfully exiting rehab, Brand achieved fame in the UK in 2003 for his Big Brother spin-off, Big Brother's Big Mouth. Although he had previously acted in television shows, his first major film role was in the 2007 film St Trinians. He became known to American audencies when he got a major role in Forgetting Sarah Marshall which led to a starring role in 2010's Get Him to the Greek. He has also been a voice actor for animated films such as 2010's Despicable Me and the 2011 film Hop. He starred in the 2011 remake of the 1981 Dudley Moore film Arthur.
Brand is noted for his eccentricity and his controversies in the British media, including his dismissal from MTV for dressing up as Osama bin Laden and controversies while presenting at various award ceremonies. The 2008 prank telephone calls he made to Andrew Sachs while co-hosting The Russell Brand Show with Jonathan Ross led to his resignation from the BBC and major policy changes in that organisation. His prior drug use and promiscuity influenced his comedic material and public image. He married American pop singer Katy Perry in October 2010.
Brand attended Grays School Media Arts College, a comprehensive. He made his theatrical debut at the age of 15, playing the role of Fat Sam in a school production of Bugsy Malone, which prompted him to become an actor. He began working as an extra, and applied to study at the Italia Conti Academy. He was accepted, and Essex council funded his tuition for an introductory year, with potential funding for three additional years. Brand joined the Academy in 1991, but was expelled during his introductory year for his bad behaviour and use of drugs. Afterward, Brand had small acting roles in children's show Mud and police drama The Bill.
In 1995, Brand applied for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and Drama Centre London and was accepted to Drama Centre. He was expelled in the final term of his last year for smashing a glass over his head and then stabbing himself in the chest and arms after his hearing a criticism of his performance. After leaving Drama Centre, Brand decided to focus on comedy, and began writing material with Karl Theobald.
In 2004, he took his first one-man show, the confessional Better Now to the Edinburgh Festival, giving an honest account of his heroin addiction. He returned the following year with Eroticised Humour. He launched his first nationwide tour, Shame, in 2006. Brand drew on embarrassing incidents in his own life and the tabloid press's treatment of him since he became famous. The show was released on DVD as Russell Brand: Live.
Brand appeared in a sketch and performed stand-up at the 2006 Secret Policeman's Ball. In , he co-hosted an evening of the Teenage Cancer Trust gigs with Noel Fielding. In , Brand performed for HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Prince Philip as an act in the 2007 Royal Variety Performance.
His second nationwide tour, in 2007, was called Russell Brand: Only Joking and released on DVD as Russell Brand: Doin' Life.
Brand began performing in the US, and recorded a special for Comedy Central titled Russell Brand in New York, which aired in . Brand began touring the UK, America and Australia from January to on a tour called Russell Brand: Scandalous. In October, a further four dates that were performed in November were added to raise money for Focus 12, the drug charity for which Brand is a patron. Russell Brand: Scandalous was released on DVD on 2009.
After leaving MTV, Brand starred in RE:Brand, a British documentary and comedy television programme that aimed to take a challenging look at cultural taboos. It was conceived, written, and hosted by Brand, with the help of his comic partner on many projects, Matt Morgan. The series was shown on the now-defunct digital satellite channel UK Play in 2002.
In 2004, he hosted Big Brother's Eforum on E4, a sister show to Big Brother 5. The show gave celebrity guests and the public the chance to have their say on the goings-on inside the Big Brother house. For Big Brother 6, the show's name changed to Big Brother's Big Mouth. Following Celebrity Big Brother 5, Brand said he would not return to host the Big Brother 8 series of Big Brother's Big Mouth. In a statement, Brand thanked all the producers for "taking the risk of employing an ex-junkie twerp" to front the show. Of his time presenting the show, he said, "The three years I've spent on Big Brother's Big Mouth have been an unprecedented joy".
Brand hosted a one-off special called Big Brother According to Russell Brand, in which Brand took a surreal, sideways look at Big Brother through the ages. On 2008, Brand was the fifth celebrity to "hijack" the Big Brother house, in the E4 show Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack. Brand next returned to MTV in the spring of 2006 as presenter of the chat show 1 Leicester Square, which initially aired at 8 pm on Sundays before being shifted to a post-watershed time of 10 pm on Mondays, allowing for a more adult-oriented theme. Guests have included Tom Cruise, Uma Thurman, The Mighty Boosh, and Boy George. A second series began in on MTV UK. After Big Brother 7 finished, Brand presented a debate show called Russell Brand's Got Issues, on digital channel E4. The viewing figures for the first episode were seen as disappointing, being beaten by nearly all of E4's main multi-channel rivals despite a big publicity and promotional campaign for the show. The poor ratings prompted the network to repackage the show as The Russell Brand Show and move it to Channel 4. The first episode was broadcast on on Channel 4, and it ran for five weeks.
Brand presented the 2006 NME Awards. At the ceremony Bob Geldof, who was accepting an award from Brand, said at the podium, "Russell Brand – what a cunt", to which Brand replied, "Really it's no surprise [Geldof]'s such an expert on famine. He has after all been dining out on 'I Don't Like Mondays' for 30 years". Brand hosted the 2007 BRIT Awards and presented Oasis with an "Outstanding Contribution to Music" award at the event. He also hosted one hour of Comic Relief. On 2007, he presented at the UK leg of Live Earth at Wembley Stadium, London.
On 12 December 2007, BBC Four aired Russell Brand On the Road, a documentary presented by Brand and Matt Morgan about the writer Jack Kerouac and his novel On the Road. Brand returned to Channel 4 to host Russell Brand's Ponderland, in which he discussed topics like childhood and science through stand-up comedy. The show first aired on 2007, and continued for the next five nights. A second series began on 2008, drawing more than a million viewers, and was broadcast every Thursday night for four weeks, plus a Christmas special that aired in December.
Brand was later announced as the host of the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, which drew scepticism from the American media, as he was relatively unknown to the American public. Brand's stint as host of the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards was not without controversy. At one point, he said the night "marked the launch of a very new Britney Spears era", referring to it as "the resurrection of [Spears]". He also said, "If there was a female Christ, it's Britney". Brand implored the audience to elect Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and later called then–U.S. President George W. Bush "a retarded cowboy fella", who, in England, "wouldn't be trusted with scissors". He made several references to the purity rings worn by the Jonas Brothers, but apologised for the comments later in the show. These comments led to Brand receiving death threats by some offended viewers. Brand claimed that MTV asked him to host the 2009 awards after the ratings for the 2008 show were 20% up from the previous year. Also in 2008 Brand hosted a one off stand up comedy show called Comedy Live Presents: Russell Brand and Friends shown on Channel 4 on 25 January 2008. Brand hosted the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards on 2009, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The ratings for the 2009 show were the best since the 2004 VMAs. On February 12, 2011, Brand guest hosted an episode of the hit American sketch comedy Saturday Night Live.
In 2007, Brand appeared in Cold Blood for ITV, playing an ex-con called Ally. Brand played a recovering crack addict named Terry in the pilot for the ITV comedy The Abbey, written by Morwenna Banks.
He voiced the Earth Guardian in Robbie the Reindeer in Close Encounters of the Herd Kind.
Brand had a small role in the 2006 movie Penelope, though his first major film role was as Flash Harry in the 2007 film St Trinian's. He did not reprise the role for the sequel, St. Trinian's II: The Legend of Fritton's Gold.
He achived American fame when he starred in the 2008 film Forgetting Sarah Marshall, in which he played Aldous Snow, the boyfriend of the title character (played by Kristen Bell). Brand received rave reviews for his performance as Snow, and he revealed the character was changed from an author to a rockstar because of his audition.
Brand starred alongside Adam Sandler in the Disney film Bedtime Stories, which was released on Christmas Day 2008.
He reprised the role of Aldous Snow for a buddy comedy titled Get Him to the Greek, co-starring Jonah Hill. He reunited with Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller and producer Judd Apatow for the film.
Brand had a role in Julie Taymor's version of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, as Trinculo.
In 2010, Brand voiced Dr. Nefario in the Universal movie Despicable Me, and guest starred in The Simpsons episode "Angry Dad: The Movie" as himself. Brand also starred in the 2011 live action/CGI animated film Hop, in which he voiced the film's main protagonist E.B. Hop opened at number one at the Friday box office in the US, earning $11.4 million. The same month, April 2011, he played the title character in a remake of Arthur, written by Peter Baynham.
Brand is set to star as Lonny in a movie adaption of 80s musical Rock Of Ages, which is to be released in cinemas in June 2012. His other upcoming projects include a remake of Drop Dead Fred. Brand will also appear in an Oliver Stone film. Sandler has cast Brand in another film and will produce yet another, co-written by Brand and Matt Morgan, about a con-man posing as a priest; it is tentatively titled Bad Father. and he is also set to star as Fred Mumford in a movie adaption of the hit 70s programme Rentaghost.
Brand has also set up his own production company with his friend Nik Linnen called 'Branded Films' and will be run from the Warner Bros studios in Burbank, California. It has been reported that the company is set up to primarily develop films for Brand himself to star in.
Brand co-hosted The Russell Brand Show beginning in on BBC 6Music. In , the show transferred to BBC Radio 2 and aired on Saturdays from 9 – 11pm. The show regularly drew about 400,000 listeners. In an episode of the show broadcast on 2008, Brand and fellow Radio 2 DJ Jonathan Ross made a series of phone calls to actor Andrew Sachs that crudely discussed Sachs' granddaughter. Sunday tabloid The Mail on Sunday broke the story and regarded the phone calls as obscene. Both presenters were later suspended by the BBC due to the incident, and Brand resigned from his show. The BBC was later fined £150,000 by Britain's broadcast regulator for airing the calls.
Brand returned to radio when he and Noel Gallagher hosted a football talk show on 2009 for talkSPORT which led to a 250% boost in web traffic.
Brand returned to talkSPORT in 2010, with a Saturday night show that will last 20 weeks. The show will feature clips and back-stage recordings from his Booky Wook 2 promotional tour. Brand will be joined by a host of guests, including the likes of Noel Gallagher and Jonathan Ross.
Brand's autobiography, My Booky Wook, published by Hodder & Stoughton, was released on 2007 and received favourable reviews. The Observer commented that "Russell Brand's gleeful tale of drugs and debauchery in My Booky Wook puts most other celebrity memoirs to shame".
Brand signed a £1.8 million two-book deal with HarperCollins in . The first book was Articles of Faith, with the second being Booky Wook 2: This Time It's Personal released on 2010.
Following the 2011 London riots, Brand wrote a guest column in The Guardian, in which he criticised the Government's response to the rioters as failing to address the root causes.
Brand appeared on the 2010 version of 3 Lions alongside Robbie Williams.
Brand first met American singer/songwriter Katy Perry in summer 2008 when Perry filmed a cameo for Brand's film Get Him to the Greek. Brand and Perry began dating after meeting again in at the MTV Video Music Awards, where Brand, as host, remarked "Katy Perry didn't win an award and she's staying at the same hotel as me, so she's gonna need a shoulder to cry on. So in a way, I'm the real winner tonight." Perry says she threw a bottle of water at Brand to get his attention and then they went clubbing together the same night. The couple became engaged in when Brand proposed to Perry while on a holiday in India. The couple married on 2010 in a traditional Hindu ceremony, near the Ranthambhore tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan, India, the same location where Brand proposed.
On 16 September 2010, Brand was arrested on suspected battery charges after he allegedly attacked a paparazzo who blocked his and Perry's way to catch a flight at the Los Angeles International Airport. On 2010, he was released from custody after posting $20,000 bail. Footage of the incident was later sent to TMZ. Perry later defended Brand's actions, and offered an insight into the reasons for his outburst, posting on Twitter that, "If you cross the line & try and put a lens up my dress, my fiancé will do his job & protect me."
Brand was deported from Japan on 22 May 2011 when he arrived with Perry to perform her California Dreams tour. The deportation was because of his criminal record.
Title | Year | Role | Notes |
! scope="row" | 2007 | ||
! scope="row" | 2008 | Sam | |
Forgetting Sarah Marshall | 2008 | Aldous Snow | |
! scope="row" | 2008 | Mickey | |
Get Him to the Greek | 2010 | Aldous Snow | |
Despicable Me | 2010 | Dr. Nefario | Voice |
2010 | Trinculo | ||
! scope="row" | 2011 | E.B./"Hoff Knows Talent" Production Assistant | Voice/Live-action |
! scope="row" | 2011 | Arthur Bach | |
! scope="row" | 2012 | Lonny Barnett | |
Show | Year | Role | Episode | Notes |
2011 | Himself | Big Time Beach Party | ||
+ Awards | |||
Award | Award category | Year | Result |
! scope="row" | Best Stand-Up | 2006 | Won |
! scope="row" | Best Stand-Up | 2006 | Won |
British Comedy Awards | Best Newcomer | 2006 | Won |
! scope="row" | Best Television Performer in a Non-Acting Role | 2007 | Won |
British Comedy Awards | Best Live Stand-Up | 2008 | Won |
British Comedy Awards | Outstanding Contribution to Comedy | 2011 | Won |
Category:1975 births Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:21st-century writers Category:Alumni of the Drama Centre London Category:Alumni of the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts Category:Big Brother (UK) Category:English actors Category:English anarchists Category:English artists Category:English people Category:English autobiographers Category:English bloggers Category:English comedians Category:English comedy writers Category:English documentary filmmakers Category:English dramatists and playwrights Category:English essayists Category:English expatriates in the United States Category:English film actors Category:English film producers Category:English game show hosts Category:English guitarists Category:English humanitarians Category:English musicians Category:English motivational speakers Category:English novelists Category:English non-fiction writers Category:English philosophers Category:English poets Category:English radio DJs Category:English radio personalities Category:English satirists Category:English singers Category:English socialists Category:English songwriters Category:English stand-up comedians Category:English television actors Category:English television personalities Category:English television presenters Category:English television writers Category:English vegetarians Category:Katy Perry Category:Living people Category:People from Grays Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:People self-identifying as substance abusers Category:People with bipolar disorder Category:The Guardian journalists Category:Transcendental Meditation practitioners
ar:راسل براند cy:Russell Brand de:Russell Brand es:Russell Brand fa:راسل براند fr:Russell Brand ga:Russell Brand gl:Russell Brand ko:러셀 브랜드 it:Russell Brand he:ראסל בראנד nl:Russell Brand ja:ラッセル・ブランド no:Russell Brand pl:Russell Brand pt:Russell Brand ro:Russell Brand ru:Брэнд, Рассел simple:Russell Brand fi:Russell Brand sv:Russell BrandThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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