Adrien Brody: The Brutalist’s AI Controversy Is “Triggering” but Misunderstood
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Adrien Brody: The Brutalist’s AI Controversy Is “Triggering” but Misunderstood


Adrien Brody knows how much work he put into The Brutalist, the American epic helmed by Brady Corbet that recently earned 10 Oscar nominations (including best actor for Brody). He’s in almost every scene of the film, which runs for more than three and a half hours, and within that time frame is tasked with showcasing immense range. There’s a lot of refined technical work vital to his authentic portrayal of a distinguished architect who’s fled post–World War II Hungary for Pennsylvania as well. “There was a tremendous amount of dialect work that needed to be done—and I had to memorize Hungarian language,” Brody says on this week’s Little Gold Men (listen or read below). “It was quite an emotional journey [told] over several decades.”

So you can see why a recent controversy surrounding The Brutalist irks Brody a bit. Weeks ago, the public learned that during postproduction on the film, Corbet implemented a few artificial intelligence tools—including for sequences when Brody and his fellow Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, who plays his wife, spoke in Hungarian.

Corbet said in a statement that “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own.” Brody agrees, saying in our interview that the process did not override any work he did for the film. “I understand that we live in a time where even just the mention of AI is a bit triggering,” the actor says. But Brody also believes that implying his performance was assisted by AI diminishes both the preparation he did for the role and his work onscreen. “We live in a time where unfortunately things can get misappropriated quite easily on the internet,” he says, “and I just wish people had more understanding of the context and facts of the circumstances.”

In both scope and impact, The Brutalist is the type of project Brody had been yearning for ever since his Oscar-winning breakout in The Pianist changed his life more than 20 years ago. Not that he’d just been sitting around until it came his way. In that way, The Brutalist also proved to be perfectly timed—for who Brody has become as an artist, and for what he felt ready to give to it. Which is to say, everything he had.

Vanity Fair: This is your second best actor nomination. How does that land for you? I know you’ve talked a lot about coming full circle a little bit with this role.

Adrien Brody: As you get older in life, you have more perspective, you have more experience. I’m very much aware of how rare it is to get an opportunity like this, to find a role with so much significance and relevance…. It’s quite healing, actually, to have work that is so inspiring. I’ve been able to reflect upon and honor the struggles of my grandparents and my mother’s journey in a way, through the interpretation of the character. It’s really special. So many people that I have a tremendous amount of admiration for have reached out to me and written me beautiful letters. I don’t recall ever having that ever, so it’s quite a unique moment.

You made this movie for less money than people would expect. Does that change the way you have to prepare, the kind of head space you have to be in on set? How did that differ from past work of yours?

I’m not unfamiliar with the challenges of productions that have limited resources. That’s par for the course. This was pretty challenging because of the enormity, the scope of the film, and the storytelling—the fact that there was a tremendous amount of dialect work that needed to be done. I had to memorize Hungarian language. It was quite an emotional journey over several decades. We don’t have time to do extensive coverage. It requires all the actors, all the departments, to really come together and make it work right away. If you can’t, you’re going to miss it. You’re up against light, you’re up against production costs, so it adds a layer of pressure. I don’t enjoy the pressure, but it creates an additional layer of adrenaline or some kind of fight or flight thing that everyone is cooking with that spurs a bit more creativity.

Do you feel the pressure in the moment?



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