The Pianist<\/em> rather quickly. He knows what it takes to anchor a project of this magnitude.<\/p>\nJust how much magnitude, you may ask? For starters, The Brutalist,<\/em> helmed by Vox Lux<\/em> director Brady Corbet<\/strong> (and cowritten with his partner, Mona Fastvold<\/strong>), boasts a runtime of 215 minutes\u2014the longest of this year\u2019s (and most years\u2019) festival competition. (The movie, seeking US distribution, is also slated to screen in Toronto and New York.) But then there\u2019s the matter of the story: a sweeping immigrant tale following the extreme highs and lows experienced by Brody\u2019s L\u00e1szl\u00f3 T\u00f3th, a successful architect who flees Hungary during WWII to settle in Philadelphia, and rebuild an entire life while his wife (Felicity Jones<\/strong>) waits to join him. He\u2019s hired by a wealthy scion (Joe Alwyn<\/strong>) to build a grand library for his volatile father (Guy Pearce<\/strong>)\u2014marking the beginnings of a decades-long saga about a desperate, brilliant artist held under the thumb of American power, fighting to thrive or maybe just survive.<\/p>\nRooted in the origins of brutalist architecture and devised with impressive specificity, the film nonetheless takes on the shape of a classic epic, one that Brody carries with poignant commitment. He only had a few months to film The Brutalist,<\/em> but like The Pianist,<\/em> it feels like the work of a lifetime\u2014and this time, its impact on Brody was profoundly personal.<\/p>\nVanity Fair:<\/em> This project was starting to assemble its cast before COVID, and went through many changes. When did it come to you? Was it an easy yes?<\/strong><\/p>\nAdrien Brody:<\/em> It was about four years ago, and then I had received this script and had an opportunity to meet with Brady and discuss it. I was so moved when I read this movie for many reasons. It was such a personal story. My mother is a Hungarian immigrant and fled wartime Europe. Her journey as an artist, coming to America and how the trauma of war and fleeing home and all of that impacted her work as an artist, really was the guiding light for me as an artist\u2014my barometer for more than staying grounded, but staying true to an artistic pursuit.<\/p>\nSo I was all over it as best as I could, and obviously shared how right I felt I was with Brady. It went away for a while. It felt a bit like a loss, but there\u2019s roles that sometimes you don\u2019t even get to be in the running for. Then it came around miraculously. I\u2019m genuinely grateful for that.<\/p>\n
Once you were cast, in the period before filming, was there any rehearsal? What did the prep look like?<\/strong><\/p>\nBrady and I spoke a lot, but I don\u2019t recall there being a tremendous amount of rehearsal time. I have a lifetime of rehearsal time for this role in a lot of ways. I had a lot of work that was deeply locked into me from The Pianist<\/em>. Much of that really stayed with me\u2026. This is 20 years later, and that still shaped so much of what not to take for granted and how the little things in life that I had taken for granted previously became apparent. It made me more centered and conscious. Age or getting older does affect your understanding of time and the value of what you put your time to. These endeavors are rare. Making a film like this is rare. I worked on dialect and spoke a lot with my mom about her time there. We\u2019ve spoken a lot about that over the years. She came and visited me there while I spent time in Budapest, working on the dialect and everything.<\/p>\nThat sounds like a special opportunity, to get to have those conversations with your mom in the context of preparing to work on something so emotional.<\/strong><\/p>\nVery much so. Both my parents went to see it. They had a press screening in New York, and they had been very eager to see it. I think it was pretty profound for her. They seemed very blown away by Brady\u2019s work; it\u2019s just an awe-inspiring film. It\u2019s interesting: My grandfather, her father, always dreamt of being an actor. He actually had a little brief stint and got hired to do Zorba, the Greek<\/em> on Broadway, in a very tertiary role. I think was giving the director notes and he got fired. [Laughs<\/em>]<\/p>\nHow does that personal element change the equation for you as an actor? Are you approaching the work differently?<\/strong><\/p>\nThe whole joy of being an actor is to harness truths, whether they\u2019re personal experiences or experiences of others that you research and hopefully gain some understanding of or empathy towards. There\u2019s far and few moments where they\u2019re so attainable to you without a great deal of grasping or fabricating. You still have the responsibility to do it, but you have truths at your disposal. It\u2019s just a matter of connecting to those, and reopening those, and examining them from the perspective of the character you\u2019re playing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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