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.”

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?

Yeah. But what else would I be doing with my time and my energy and my yearning to connect with others? It’s great to apply yourself fully. To be immersed in something fully, and give yourself over to that, is joyous—and it’s the process. There’s often a disconnect of what people think it is. Certain times, of course, things are different and perhaps more glamorous. But for the most part, that’s the work. It’s cold and the food sucks. Sometimes you’re unwell and you have to not show that you’re unwell. It’s part of the movie magic.

You mentioned memorizing Hungarian, and I did want to ask you about the AI kerfuffle that blew up recently around the film. What’s your perspective on how AI was used, and how do you feel about it?

It’s pretty evident. First of all, I’m the son of Hungarians and grew up with that language spoken in my home. I actually even integrated, within the Hungarian dialogue, curse words that weren’t in the script. I’m happy that Brady managed to clarify a lot in his remarks. Obviously, his post-production process only touched some lines spoken in Hungarian. Nothing of the dialect was altered; that’s all done through a lot of hard work with our wonderful dialect coach, Tanera Marshall. We all worked incredibly hard on it, and we all know that.

Is it frustrating when you see these things spiral beyond what you know is the reality?

It comes with the territory. Brady is a very sensitive, thoughtful filmmaker. There was no technology implemented that takes work from people. It’s quite a typical post-production process. I think we all know the truth.

Have you gained any further insights from Brady since making the movie, just doing these Q&As and hearing him talk, or maybe in reflecting on it now that you’ve seen it?

We’d touched briefly on thematic cues and elements, but seeing the film, I see all kinds of metaphors of how the structure relates to László himself. I see how these fortress-like brutalist walls and cavernous inner space somewhat represent his state of being, and a hollowness that ensues from kind of all the loss and hardship—this yearning for connection with the divine, which he incorporates in the structure that he creates.

Brady and Mona [Fastvold] and I spoke a lot about how they were motivated partially to write this film because of something they had encountered, where post-war psychology was intrinsically linked with post-war architecture. I see that as well, how artists are often channeling or trying to contend with traumatic experiences in their work. My mother, who’s a wonderful photographer named Sylvia Plachy, her work I would say is deeply influenced by her life experiences—her sensitivity, her empathetic nature. I feel like that too; because she’s such an inspiration to me as an artist, she’s guided my own artistic path.

You won your Oscar before turning 30. There was, I’d imagine, an excitement and a question as to what would come next. What do you remember about that period?

It was kind of Earth-shattering, the shift. I had been working professionally, devotedly, for 17 years prior to that. To many people, I really was an overnight success. On that scale of public awareness, of me as an actor, recognizing me and my name, and associating me with several things, it put a lot of things together for people.

My parents came out to LA to be with me that weekend, and we went out to dinner the following night. I asked for a table for three, and the hostess looked at me kind of oddly. My dad and I kind of looked at each other and she sat us. And the entire restaurant turned and faced us, and then stood up and applauded. I’d been kicking around in LA for over a decade or so, and definitely nobody got up and applauded. [Laughs] That was an indication of how vastly different and how much more visible I was. It was something. And then I was just trying to find work that spoke to me—you’re back at it. You have this thing happen that is quite powerful, but really, it doesn’t end your journey to keep looking to create new work and find work that speaks to you, and that hopefully helps you continue to be relevant as an actor. Pretty interesting time to live through.

Was there a new learning curve to it for you, in terms of how to navigate the kind of work you wanted to do, and the kind of work available to you?

I agree with you that probably there was a lot to learn and to learn on the fly. I didn’t have any experience with any of it, so it was a lot of navigating. But that’s why this moment is quite special because in spite of it taking me quite a long time—and I’m not diminishing the work or collaborations I’ve done with others, and I’ve had many wonderful, creative experiences over these years—this is the kind of film I was looking to find: this caliber of work, this level of complexity. It’s really something that speaks to the human condition. These movies are far and few between, and these opportunities for an actor are far and few between.

I’ve enjoyed watching you adapt and play in the sandbox of different directors, different styles—say, with Wes Anderson.

I have too.

The Darjeeling Limited is a beautiful melding of your approach as an actor and his as a filmmaker, and you’ve done a lot since. What has he meant to you as a collaborator?

Wes is very, very dear to me, and I owe him a lot of gratitude because he’s enriched my life in so many ways—not just with these wonderful characters, but the experiences of being on location with him, being introduced to so many incredible actors and creative people. Darjeeling is also one of my favorite films and life experiences. I lived in India. I traveled around on a train. I lived with Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman and Wes and Roman Coppola all in a house, and bought a Royal Enfield motorcycle and rode around every day. I got to do comedic work that wasn’t superficially comedic, but that was actually quite funny and emotional and endearing, and also what I’d been yearning to do. I had not had an opportunity to prove myself in that space. It’s kind of hard to say, “Here’s an actor. You might like the work that’s been done, but you have to believe that they’re going to be able to carry the storytelling approach that suits your aesthetic.”

Your one-time Succession co-stars, Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin, are also Oscar-nominated this year. I bring that up because some of the most interesting work you’ve done lately has been on television, on shows like that or Winning Time. Did that feel like a change of pace to you?

I loved the Succession opportunity, and that came about essentially from signing up to do Winning Time. As I was in prep to play Pat Riley, they were like, “We have this role in Succession that you’d be right for. Would you like to do it?” And I was like, “Definitely.” I had some thoughts on the character and how it could have a bit more bite, and they honored that request and really made those moments count.

I loved working with Brian [Cox] and Jeremy. It’s fun to jump in. You have these actors who are really great at what they do and are so immersed in their character and are so far along in it. Then you come in for one episode and you have to somewhat destabilize them and upend their equilibrium. That’s a tall order. They do not want to give that up either, as characters and as people, but they were very welcoming. That production let me do my thing. That’s the beauty of having worked long enough that people trust you to do your thing and give you space to play. It was much harder when I was younger, just having less experience, less sense of confidence on a set to insist on or suggest certain things that I knew would be helpful. I’ve been doing this my whole life, so all I want is to contribute and help lift everyone up.

You mentioned The Brutalist being the kind of role that you’ve been waiting for. I’m curious what that wait feels like when the role doesn’t come.

You endure, like everybody else. You look for inspiration wherever you can find it. At times, I’ve written works, I’ve produced works, done other things to help the cause of trying to find things that speak to me, that speak to certain characters that I have not been afforded opportunities to play. I found alternatives when the wait was too great. I’ve painted. I’ve been working on music since my late teens, early 20s. I’m good with filling the void when necessary, these days especially—maybe not when I was so young. There’s no shortage of ways to apply myself. There’s less time and energy to do it all, but there’s a lot that I do want to accomplish and I can accomplish if certain things that I am yearning for aren’t presented. That took a lot of time and it took a lot of personal growth. I worked a lot. I tried and experimented.

This interview has been edited and condensed.