Clean’s life is very regimented. After hours at work as a garbage man, he goes to the same spots and checks up on the same people. However, things change when his past catches up to him and returns him to a life of violence for the sake of protecting a young girl he mentors.

With a swift swing of the arm, a wrench zips through the air and against the skull of a stranger. And another. And another… 

His fiery passion for protection alters the course of his life when he lays hands on the wrong group of people, however. In an effort to keep Dianda (Chandler DuPont) safe, he embraces the violence and fury he's kept buried within. He then has to face the truth of his past and save himself in the process.

Clean is a passion project of Academy® Award-winning actor Adrien Brody, who co-wrote, produced, scored, and starred in the film. He had been looking for a role like Clean for years he says, and eventually found a way to make the action-thriller himself after pitching it to co-writer, director and producer Paul Solet (Mars). What resulted was a layered character struggling with his past and present. 

Clean is portrayed as a tormented man. The audience is slowly introduced to his past to understand why he is the way he is, but at points, Clean is also seen as the good and the bad guy. 

In fact, one character tells him, “you’re a good man.” 

“No ma’am,” he responds. 

“Like so many of us, we all have our flaws and our failings, and the characters that we root for in a movie should not be dissimilar to that,” Brody says. “They should really represent the fragility of life and the need for us all to not only persevere, but triumph in the face of adversity.” 

In some ways, Clean is heroic. But he isn’t the most likable person, Brody adds. It’s intentional. Clean is portrayed as an off-ish man who has had an addiction to drugs and violence. Logically, he isn’t the man you’d root for, but his character is on the road to redemption, making him worthy of that empathy. 

“He's made a lot of big mistakes, and some of those are insurmountable,” Brody says. “But he manages to move forward and ultimately helps this young girl that he's mentoring and gives her an opportunity.”

As an actor, Brody had to navigate Clean’s redemption as well as understand who he is. One parallel he was able to find was in Clean’s regimen.

“It kind of echoed my own regimented life,” he says. When preparing for a new role, Brody will take on aspects of what that character’s daily life may look like. 

“I'll do like a training regimen that's really representative of what that individual had, like in The Jacket, I only worked out with what that character would have in a cell,” he says about the role of Jack Starks. 

For Clean, he brought in regimen practices — such as his diet of chicken breasts and veggies, a meal that serves as a contrast to fish in the film — to layer who Clean is. 

“I do a lot to try and have a bit of a metamorphosis as I play different characters,” Brody says. 

The metamorphosis was important in Clean’s character because he is initially portrayed as someone no one would pay attention to. He’s cloaked in his work gear and remains a humble man. By the end of the film, he breaks away his layers, literally and figuratively, to face his current fears and past mistakes. 

Brody says making the film was a “very long, very complex process.” Throughout the development of the film, he found himself ebbing and flowing between roles on the production, seeing how he could express his character and story in different art forms. 

“It was a real breakthrough for me to create something from its inception and then to further elaborate on that creatively,” he says. 

Notably, Brody created the music and score for the film.

“I found that the music that I was making once we were in production echoed the feelings and the emotions, of not only Clean, but the world around him and gave me an opportunity to integrate yet another character and another creative form of expression that I also had not embarked on in such a cohesive level,” he explains. 

Brody took on responsibilities both behind and in front of the camera, and juggling the multiple roles didn't prove easy.

“You can't skimp on either responsibility, and I had several,” he says. “It took a toll. It was very challenging to make. I’d do some things differently next time around, but I learned a lot.” 

Clean is also close to Brody because of the environment he grew up around in New York City. He noticed the impact poverty, drugs and violence can have on a community and wanted to highlight the issue by setting the film in a neighborhood struck with the same troubles. 

“We end up feeling very isolated, especially in impoverished communities,” he says. “They're afflicted with so much, so many obstacles, and so much injustice all around. And that's very hard for a young person to escape.” 

In the film, Ethel (Michelle Wilson) shares how she misses the sounds of children laughing and playing outside in her neighborhood that is now tinged with violence. The scene is a prime example of how Brody brought together each of his artistic skills to construct the world of Clean. In addition to writing and performing in the scene, he scores the scene with exactly what she recalls. 

“I've tried to go well beyond that to constantly infiltrate the space with unsettling soundscapes that we have to endure in an urban environment,” he says. 

Children play in the background while a fight can be heard in the distance, along with a glass bottle breaking in the opposite direction. Then, somewhere tucked behind the closed door of a car, is music blasting and blurring behind a child’s laugh. Brody recalls his father sharing similar stories about how his neighborhood changed over time. In a statement, Brody shares how his awareness of this reality has impacted his work as an artist, especially for the role of Clean. 

“I long to tell stories that represent those who are striving to overcome the world's brutality,” Brody states.  

Clean is now available In Theaters, On Digital Rental & VOD.