The 39-year-old actor won rave reviews for playing a Jewish Polish man trying to escape the Holocaust and received a Best Actor Academy Award for the role, but Brody admits the dark project left him with emotional issues, reported The Guardian.
"(It was) all-consuming. For a good year after, I was probably seriously depressed.
"There were severe transitions that I put myself through physically and emotionally... I shot it when I was 27, and that was my real awakening and entrance into adulthood, that responsibility, and awareness of my own good fortune that I had taken for granted," said Brody.
The actor also said that he regrets that more roles of that calibre haven't come his (or anyone else's) way during the decade since "The Pianist" was made.