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Russell Brand
Brand in 2007 at a book signing
Birth name	Russell Edward Brand
Born	4 June 1975 (1975-06-04) (age 33) Grays, Essex, England
Medium	Stand-up, television, film, radio
Nationality	British
Years active	2000  – present
Influences	Peter Cook, Richard Pryor, Tony Hancock, Jack Kerouac, Bill Hicks
Website	http://www.russellbrand.tv/

Russell Edward Brand^[1] (born June 4, 1975) is an English comedian, actor, author, columnist, and radio and television presenter.

Brand achieved mainstream fame in the UK for presenting a Big Brother spin-off, Big Brother's Big Mouth, and for his radio show, among other television series and award ceremonies. He has also appeared in a number of films, including the romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, St Trinian's, and the upcoming Bedtime Stories.

Brand is noted for his unusual fashion preferences, and he has described himself as resembling "an S&M Willy Wonka". He is also noted for various controversies that have surrounded him in the British media, such as the 2008 prank calls that led to his resignation from the BBC.

Early life

Brand was born in Grays, Essex, England, the only child of Barbara Elizabeth (née Nichols) and Ronald Henry Brand, a photographer.^[2] His parents separated when Brand was six months old. His mother brought him up on her own, giving Brand a somewhat isolated and lonely childhood.^[3]

Brand made his theatrical debut at age 15 as "Fat Sam" in a school production of Bugsy Malone. After this Brand decided he wanted to be 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. During this time he began smoking cannabis, became bulimic, and eventually took LSD. Brand was expelled during his introductory year for his behaviour. Afterward Brand had small acting roles in the children's show Mud and in The Bill.

In 1995 Brand applied for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and Drama Centre London and was accepted to Drama Centre. By this point he was a heroin addict and an alcoholic. He was expelled in the final term of his final year for smashing a glass over his head and then stabbing himself in the chest and arms because of poor reactions to one of his performances. After leaving Drama Centre, Brand decided to focus on comedy and began writing material with Karl Theobald, whom he met at Drama Centre. They formed a short-lived double act, Theobald and Brand on Ice.

Career

Stand-up

Brand's first significant stand-up appearance was at the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year final in 2000. Although he finished fourth, his performance attracted the attention of an agent, Nigel Klarfeld of Gagged and Bound Comedy Ltd.^[4]. That same year he made his Edinburgh debut as one third of the stand-up show Pablo Diablo's Cryptic Triptych alongside ventriloquist Mark Felgate and Anglo-Iranian comic Shappi Khorsandi.

In 2004, he also 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, and in 2006 with Shame, which drew on embarrassing incidents in Brand's life and the tabloid press' treatment of him since he became famous. The show released on DVD as Russell Brand: Live. His second nationwide tour was in 2007 and titled Russell Brand: Only Joking and released on DVD as Russell Brand: Doin' Life.

Brand appeared in a sketch and performed stand-up at the 2006 Secret Policeman's Ball. In March 2007, he co-hosted an evening of the Teenage Cancer Trust gigs with Noel Fielding.

On December 3, 2007 Brand performed for HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Prince Philip as an act in the 2007 Royal Variety Performance. Because of his filming schedule in America, Brand has began performing stand-up there as well and will record a special for Comedy Central that will air in February 2009.^[5] Brand will tour the UK in January/February 2009 on a 26 date tour.^[6]

During a performance at the Royal and Derngate Theatre, Northampton in July 2008, Brand made a hoax call claiming he had spotted a man responsible for a series of assaults. Brand issued an apology for his actions.^[7]

Presenting

Brand's first presenting role came in 2000 as a VJ on music channel MTV presenting Dance Floor Chart, in which he toured the nightclubs of Britain and Ibiza, and the hosted teatime request show Select. However he was fired after coming to work dressed as Osama bin Laden the day after the September 11, 2001 attacks and bringing his drug dealer to the MTV studios.^[8]

After MTV, Brand featured 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 for many projects, Matt Morgan. The series was shown on the now defunct digital satellite channel UK Play in 2002. Brand was often drunk or under the influence of Class A drugs during the filming of RE:Brand.

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 and 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."^[9] Brand hosted a one-off special called Big Brother According to Russell Brand in which Brand takes a surreal, sideways look at Big Brother through the ages. On January 8, 2008, Brand was the fifth celebrity to hijack the Big Brother house,^[10] in the E4 show Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack.

Brand returned to MTV in the spring of 2006 as presenter of the chat show 1 Leicester Square initially going out at 8 p.m. on Sundays before being shifted to a post-watershed time of 10 p.m. on Mondays, allowing a more adult theme to the show. Guests have included Tom Cruise, Uma Thurman, The Mighty Boosh and Boy George. A second series began in September 2006 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. Because of the poor ratings the show was repackaged as The Russell Brand Show and moved to Channel 4.^[11] The first episode was broadcast on November 24, on Channel 4^[12] and the show ran for five weeks.

Brand presented the 2006 NME Awards, and was famously called a "cunt" by Bob Geldof, to which Brand replied, "Really it's no surprise he's [Geldof] such an expert on famine he has after all been dining out on, "I Don't Like Mondays," for 30 years."^[13] Brand hosted the 2007 BRIT Awards and presented Oasis with their Outstanding Contribution to Music award at the event.^[14] He also hosted one hour of Comic Relief. On 7 July 2007, he presented at the UK leg of Live Earth at Wembley Stadium, London.

A documentary presented by Brand and Matt Morgan about the writer Jack Kerouac and his novel On the Road called Russell Brand On the Road aired on December 12, 2007 on BBC Four.

Brand returned to Channel 4 to host Russell Brand's Ponderland, in which he discusses various topics like childhood and science through stand-up comedy. The show first aired on October 22, 2007, and was on for the following five nights. A second series began on October 30, 2008, drawing in over 1 million viewers, and was broadcast every Thursday night for a further 4 weeks with a Christmas special to air in December.

Brand was announced as the host of the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards which caused 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.^[15] 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]," and, "if there was a female Christ, it's Britney."^[16] Brand implored the audience to elect Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and later called U.S. President George W. Bush, "a retarded cowboy fella," who in England, "wouldn't be trusted with scissors."^[16][17] He made several references to the purity rings worn by the Jonas Brothers, but later in the show, apologised for those comments.^[18] Brand claims MTV have asked him to host the 2009 awards after the ratings for the 2008 show were 20% up from the previous year.^[19]

Acting

In 2002, he filmed roles in the television comedy dramas Cruise of the Gods (although he was fired during the filming) and White Teeth. In 2005 he played Tommy in the BBC sitcom Blessed which was written and directed by Ben Elton. He auditioned for the part of Super Hans in the Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show, but was rejected by the writers in favour of Matt King.^[20]

In 2007, Brand played a recovering crack addict called "Terry," in the pilot for ITV comedy The Abbey, written by Morwenna Banks.^[21] The Abbey was commissioned for a full series to be shown on ITV2. Filming was due to begin in January 2008 but the series has since been cancelled. Also that year, he appeared in Cold Blood for ITV playing an ex-con called Ally.

He filmed a small role in 2006 for Penelope. Brand's first major film role was as Flash Harry in the 2007 film St Trinian's, although it is not known if he will reprise the role for the upcoming sequel St Trinian's: The Legend of Fritton's Gold. His breakthrough role was 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 revealed the character was changed from a Author to Rock Star because of his audition.^[22] He will again play the character of Aldous Snow for a buddy comedy entitled Get Him to the Greek, co-starring Jonah Hill.^[23] He is reuniting with Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller and producer Judd Apatow for the film also.^[24] It is described in Variety Magazine as a "very dirty take on Almost Famous".

Brand has finished filming a starring role alongside Adam Sandler in a new Disney film Bedtime Stories, to be released Christmas 2008.^[25] Sandler has cast Brand in another film and will produce another, co-written by Brand and Morgan, about a conman posing as a priest tentatively called Bad Father.^[26][27] Brand will appear in Julie Taymor's version of William Shakespeare's The Tempest^[28]. Brand will also appear in an Oliver Stone film.^[29]

Radio

Brand's radio career began in early 2002, when he hosted a Sunday afternoon show with Matt Morgan on London's Indie Rock station Xfm. Brand was fired from this job after reading out pornographic material live on-air.

Brand co-hosted The Russell Brand Show since it began in April 2006 on BBC 6Music. In November 2006, the show transferred to BBC Radio 2 and aired on Saturdays from 9pm until 11pm. The show regularly had around 400,000 listeners.^[30]

Main article: Russell Brand prank calls row

In an episode of the show broadcast on 18 October 2008, Brand and fellow Radio 2 DJ, Jonathan Ross, made a series of phone calls, regarded by some as obscene, to actor, Andrew Sachs. Both presenters were later suspended by the BBC due to the incident,^[31] and Brand resigned from his show.^[32][33]

Writings

Brand has written a column in The Guardian since May 2006 which centres around his admiration of West Ham United and the England national football team. A collection of the columns from May 2006 until June 2007 was released on November 15, 2007 in a book entitled Irons in the Fire.^[34] A second collection of the columns for the 2007/2008 season was released on October 16, 2008 and is called Articles of Faith. It also includes Brand interviewing Noel Gallagher, James Corden and David Baddiel about football.^[35]

Brand's autobiography, My Booky Wook, published by Hodder & Stoughton, was released on November 15, 2007. The book gained a positive reception upon release. The Observer commented that "Russell Brand's gleeful tale of drugs and debauchery in My Booky Wook puts most other celebrity memoirs to shame."^[36] Brand was to play himself in a film adaptation of his autobiography, to be directed by Michael Winterbottom, but the project has since been shelved by Brand, who did not want American audiences to learn of his "chequered past" without reading the book first.^[37][38]

He signed a £1.8 million two-book deal with HarperCollins in June 2008. The first book was Articles of Faith., with the second expected to be released in 2009.^[39][40]

Music

Brand recorded a cover off The Beatles song "When I'm Sixty-Four" with Grammy Award-winning composer David Arnold for the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. He contributed two songs to the soundtrack of the 2008 film Forgetting Sarah Marshall as Aldous Snow lead singer of the fictional band, "Infant Sorrow".^[41]

Personal life

Brand lives in Hampstead, London,^[42] with his cat, which he named after the singer Morrissey, of whom Brand is a big fan^[43].

He has been a vegetarian since the age of 14,^[44]and is also a fan of football, and a supporter of West Ham United; he says that his love of football is "intrinsically about my relationship with my father."^[45] He dresses in a flamboyant bohemian fashion describing himself as looking like an "S&M Willy Wonka."^[46] He has bipolar disorder,^[47] and has suffered from bulimia in the past.^[44] He also went through a period of self-harm.^[48]

He is a former heroin and sex addict, recovering alcoholic and has had numerous run-ins with the police, having been arrested 11 times^[49] During the time of his addiction, he was known for his debauchery, a notable example being his ejection from The Gilded Balloon, in Edinburgh.^[50] He has abstained from drug use since 2002 and is now a patron of the addiction charity Focus 12.^[51] His abandonment of drugs and alcohol was instigated by his agent John Noel after he was caught taking heroin in a toilet during his Christmas party.^[52] Brand regularly attends AA and NA meetings.^[53]

Brand has a reputation in the media of being a ladies man after a string of high profile relationships and because of this has won The Sun's Shagger Of The Year in 2006^[54] and 2007^[55].

Filmography

Awards

Further reading

• Brand, Russell (2008). Articles Of Faith. London: HarperCollins.. ISBN 978-0007298815. 
• Brand, Russell (2007). Iron in the Fire. London: Hodder & Stoughton.. ISBN 978-0340961360. 
• Brand, Russell (2007). My Booky Wook. London: Hodder & Stoughton.. ISBN 978-0340936153. 
• Carey, Tanith (2007). Russell Brand. London: Michael O'Mara Books. ISBN 978-1843172406. 
• Stone, Dave (2007). Russell Brand: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know. London: John Blake Publishing. ISBN 978-1844543960. 

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Russell Brand

• Russell Brand Official website
• Russell Brand at the Internet Movie Database