Brently Heilbron | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | December 1, 1976 (age 48) |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, comedian, musician |
| Known for | Fragile Rock Tiny Desk Concert |
| Spouse(s) | Elle Mahoney, 2020-present |
| Website | www |
Brently Heilbron (born December 1, 1976) is an American comedian, musician, and actor based in Austin, Texas. He is best known for Tiny Desk Concerts with emo puppet band Fragile Rock and his work with director Robert Rodriguez.
Brently Heilbron began performing standup comedy at the age of 15 in Dallas after skipping school to audition for a local comedy club. [1] In 2007, he hosted Sir Paul McCartney's special live appearance at Amoeba Music. [2] His verbatim performance of R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet in its entirety earned him a mention in both a Los Angeles Times blog, and in The New York Times [3] among others. [4] On the stage, he was hand-picked by Woody Allen to appear in the Los Angeles Opera production of Gianni Schicchi. [5] He has hosted and created the series Stand Up Empire on PBS, appeared the Bravo improvised television series Significant Others as well as Season 5 of Friday Night Lights on NBC, The Lying Game on ABC Family [6] and The Leftovers (TV series) on HBO
In 1999, he was called Austin's best stand-up comic in the Arts and Entertainment section of the Austin Chronicle.. [7] The Austin Chronicle described Brently as "one of the most prolific and inventive comics anywhere".
In 2012, Brently led supporters and friends of Leslie Cochran in organizing Leslie Fest to pay tribute to the Austin icon and raise money for Hospice Austin. [8] [9]
In 2016, he created a comedy series for PBS called Stand Up Empire. [10] In 2017, his emo puppet band Fragile Rock was featured on NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts. [11] [12]
In 2019, Brently worked with director Robert Rodriguez twice; [13] as the psychotic Doc Sock in Red 11 and superhero Crushing Low in We Can Be Heroes. [14]
In 2020, Brently appeared in the Netflix film We Can Be Heroes , [15] in which the characters of The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D also appeared. [16] 44 million families watched the film in the first our weeks and shortly after, it was announced Rodriguez would be developing a sequel for Netflix. [17] As of 2023, it was the 6th most streamed Netflix film of all time. [18]
In 2022, it was announced that Fragile Rock will return to SXSW for a 6th time. [19]
In 2023, Brently wrote the book and songs for a "FuQusical" [20] about a young Greg Abbott. [21]
In 2024, he appeared as a storyteller on the The Moth mainstage in Austin, Texas.
In 2018, he wrote and performed "Wakeup To The Breakup" released by Fragile Rock. [22]
Robert Anthony Rodriguez is an American filmmaker, composer, and visual effects supervisor. He shoots, edits, produces, and scores many of his films in Mexico and in his home state of Texas. Rodriguez directed the 1992 action film El Mariachi, which was a commercial success after grossing $2.6 million against a budget of $7,000. The film spawned two sequels known collectively as the Mexico Trilogy: Desperado (1995) and Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003).
Spy Kids is an American media franchise centered on a series of spy action comedy films created by Robert Rodriguez. The plot follows various children, who discover that their respective parents are spies and become involved in an espionage organization when their parents go missing. The films include Hispanic themes, as Rodriguez is of Mexican descent.
Fairuza Balk is an American actress, musician, and visual artist. Known for her portrayals of distinctive characters—often with a dark edge and "goth-girl" persona—she has appeared in numerous independent films and blockbuster features.
Math rock is a style of alternative and indie rock with roots in bands such as King Crimson and Rush. It is characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures, counterpoint, odd time signatures, and extended chords. Bearing similarities to post-rock, math rock has been described as "opposite side of the same coin". Opting for a "rockier" approach to songwriting and timbres, the style is often performed by smaller ensembles which emphasize the role of the guitar.
Troublemaker Studios is an American independent production company founded and owned by filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and producer Elizabeth Avellán.
Kristen Angela Johnston is an American actress. Best known for her work on television sitcoms, she twice won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Sally Solomon in 3rd Rock from the Sun. She starred as divorce attorney Holly Franklin on The Exes, and as recovering addict Tammy Diffendorf on Mom. She has also appeared in the films Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000), Music and Lyrics (2007), and Bride Wars (2009).
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D is a 2005 American 3D superhero adventure film co-written and directed by Robert Rodriguez and originally released in the United States on June 10, 2005, by Miramax Films and Dimension Films. The production companies were Dimension Films, Columbia Pictures, and Troublemaker Studios. The film uses the anaglyph 3D technology, similar to the one used in Rodriguez's Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003). The film stars Taylor Lautner, Taylor Dooley, Cayden Boyd, David Arquette, Kristin Davis and George Lopez. Many of the concepts and much of the story were conceived by Rodriguez's children, most notably Racer Max.
American Football is an American indie rock band from Urbana, Illinois, originally active from 1997 to 2000. They reformed in 2014.
Edmund Ward was an American writer and radio commentator, the "rock-and-roll historian" for NPR's program Fresh Air from 1987 to 2017 and one of the original founders of Austin's South by Southwest music festival.
Mahamadou Souleymane, known professionally as Mdou Moctar, is a Tuareg songwriter and musician based in Agadez, Niger, who performs modern rock music inspired by Tuareg guitar music. His music first gained attention through a trading network of mobile phones and memory cards in West Africa. He sings in the Tamasheq language. Moctar's fourth album, Ilana: The Creator, released in 2019, was the first to feature a full band. He plays guitar in the takamba and assouf styles. He also appeared in the 2015 film Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai.
Mother Falcon is a symphonic rock band from Austin, Texas, known for their wide-ranging instrumentation and collaborative songwriting. Formed by bandleader Nick Gregg in 2008, the group grew to include a collective of more than twenty musicians playing strings, horns, guitars, and percussion. The group was most active between 2010 and 2016, after which they scaled back and began new projects including theatrical scores and an annual music education camp. Since the release of their final album Good Luck Have Fun, released in 2015 by Universal, the band has continued to perform in the Austin area.
DakhaBrakha are a Ukrainian folk music quartet which combines the musical styles of several ethnic groups. They were a winner of the Sergey Kuryokhin Contemporary Art Award in 2009 and the Shevchenko National Prize in 2020.
Midwest emo refers to the emo scene and/or subgenre that developed in the 1990s Midwestern United States. Employing unconventional vocal stylings, distinct guitar riffs and arpeggiated melodies, Midwest emo bands shifted away from the genre's hardcore punk roots and drew on indie rock and math rock approaches. According to the author and critic Andy Greenwald, "this was the period when emo earned many, if not all, of the stereotypes that have lasted to this day: boy-driven, glasses-wearing, overly sensitive, overly brainy, chiming-guitar-driven college music." Midwest emo is sometimes used interchangeably with second-wave emo. Although implied by the name, Midwest emo does not solely refer to bands and artists from the Midwestern United States, and the style is played by outfits across the United States and internationally.
Fragile Rock is an American musical collective of musicians and puppeteers, described as an "emo puppet band." The band formed in Austin, Texas in 2014 as the brainchild of musician and writer Brently Heilbron.
We Can Be Heroes is a 2020 American superhero kids film written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. It is both a standalone and legacy sequel to the 2005 film The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. Rodriguez was also the cinematographer and editor of the film, which stars YaYa Gosselin, Lyon Daniels, Andy Walken, Hala Finley, Lotus Blossom, Dylan Henry Lau, Andrew Diaz, Isaiah Russel-Bailey, Akira Akbar, Nathan Blair, and Vivien Lyra Blair. It was released on December 25, 2020, by Netflix and received mixed reviews from critics. In 2021, a sequel was announced to be in development.
Lashonda Lester was an American stand-up comedian from Austin, Texas. Her posthumous debut album, Shondee Superstar, was released by Dan Schlissel's Stand Up! Records in 2019, and was critically praised. John-Michael Bond of Paste magazine called her "a rare talent with a preternatural gift for razor-sharp storytelling." Marc Maron called her a "funny, authentic, hard-working comic who had her own voice... That’s an honest comic. The best kind."
Felisita Leon "YaYa" Gosselin is an American actress. She began her career modelling for commercials and made her acting debut in After Omelas (2017). Following this, she made minor appearances in Peppermint (2018), The Purge (2018), 13 Reasons Why (2019–2020), and FBI (2019–2020). She reprised her role in its spin-off FBI: Most Wanted (2020–2022) as Tali LaCroix in which she was a regular in the second season. Gosselin gained wide recognition for playing the lead role of Missy Moreno in Netflix's We Can Be Heroes (2020).
Vivien Lyra Blair is an American child actress. She made her debut in Band Aid (2017) and rose to prominence for her role as Girl in Bird Box (2018). Blair garnered further recognition for her appearances in video game Telling Lies (2019) and superhero film We Can Be Heroes (2020). In 2022, she received critical praise for her portrayal of Leia Organa in the streaming series Obi-Wan Kenobi. She later had a supporting role in the horror film The Boogeyman (2023).
Linda Victoria Diaz is an American singer-songwriter and chess player of Black and Latino descent, based in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.