Adrien Brody (László Tóth) relives some The Brutalist moments following the release of the 2024 epic period drama. Watch as Adrien Brody reacts to the big moments from The Brutalist.
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00:00How you doing? I'm Adrian Brody.
00:01You're watching GQ Action Replay for The Brutalist.
00:12These are yours, yes?
00:28Yes.
00:29I portray a Hungarian immigrant, a man who fled Budapest and emigrates to the United States.
00:38And my mother and her parents, my grandparents, are actual Hungarian immigrants as well.
00:46They fled Budapest during the revolution in the 50s and moved to America.
00:52My grandfather had a very distinct and quite pronounced Hungarian accent.
00:58It's not too dissimilar to what I work towards for Laszlo.
01:03And my research, working with a dialect coach and finding sources of that very specific dialect
01:12of a man from that time, from the 50s, really was to honor his accent and the truths that I knew,
01:21not just even with a dialect, but personality and forms of expression that kind of came out,
01:26that I recall from my childhood with my grandfather.
01:30It's a dialect that I had unknowingly been researching my whole life.
01:36Laszlo, my character in Van Buren, had an altercation prior to this, where Laszlo was
01:41hired to rebuild a library in Van Buren's home. And Van Buren kind of loses his cool
01:49and essentially kicks Laszlo out of his house for a bunch of assumptions,
01:54but basically he was very disrespectful.
01:56Van Buren had done some research and discovered not only Laszlo's talents,
02:01but a series of images of his previous works that he had constructed.
02:06What felt most profound to me was the gift of seeing all his years of work and creativity
02:12still existing, as he had assumed they had been demolished during the Nazi occupation.
02:20Did not realize these images were still available, much less of any consequence.
02:28May I keep these?
02:30When he asks permission to keep the images, it's pretty heartbreaking because these images
02:37are more nourishing, and the knowledge that all of his efforts and devotion to his work
02:45remained intact, is more nourishing than the potential for food to come.
02:50And I thought that was just so powerful and beautiful.
03:01This is magic. Thank you.
03:05There will be a big party tonight. I remember much love and party.
03:10We shot this in Carrara in Italy. We were in pre-production and Brady Corbet, our director,
03:19and I were texting and he said he was struggling to find this location, and he was in Italy.
03:26And I texted him back, I got you. I just so happened to have a friend whose family
03:36owns that marble quarry. And I reached out to him and within two or three hours,
03:43they send me a picture of Arm and Arm having a glass of wine. My friend was very kind to
03:48allow us to film our humble movie in that epic place, and it enhances the storytelling so much.
03:56So it's a big gift. He also shot it in VistaVision, which gives it this expansive look.
04:02So there's tremendous depth of field. It's a format where the negative is actually horizontal.
04:09There hasn't been an American film shot on VistaVision since 1961. So the look and feel
04:14of this is quite unique and of another era. So I think that adds to it. This grandness is kind of
04:23telling of the dangers looming as well.
04:30I've never thought of that before. I hope it was an intelligent enough answer, but
04:34I do see it. I do see how it's quite symbolic.
04:49We played this music again and again on the day, and we danced to it, and we reveled in it,
04:57and it haunted me. But it's such a beautiful moment. Lowell Crawley, our DP, is just
05:05an artist. We discuss how we will shoot something, and it's a matter of the dance between
05:15the camera and the subjects. So you have to be in a moment, but you also have to be aware of
05:21where light sources are and certain movements and what you're revealing and certain movements
05:30as they unfold. He's partying, and he's kind of given into the emotion of it all, I guess,
05:37and that exposes vulnerability. And you have Van Buren, the vantage point above, clearly
05:46looking down upon him and the circumstances with other agendas. I mean, Guy is a remarkable actor.
05:56He's a wonderful human being, but he's a very gifted actor. And there's a lot of complexity
06:01to his character. He's quite a mercurial character, and he brings all these nuances to his
06:07depiction of this character, because there are a lot of extremes. There's a genuine sense of wonder
06:17and gentleness and thoughtfulness that exists within him, but then there's this
06:24darkness and a very foreboding and controlling and representative of the class difference between
06:32them, representative of numerous ways where he must dominate in order to feel superior.
06:43It is no coincidence that fate brought us together on the eve of my mother's death.
06:52I'm good at reading the signs. Sir, I do not know what the commission entails.
06:59Talk about the details at home, but you'll be well compensated. And also,
07:03you'll be given a place here on the property. In this scene, Van Buren invites Laszlo to his home,
07:11and they have a celebratory dinner. They have some drinks together, and they really speak.
07:16And this is the first moment of profound respect and opportunity. They're on the precipice of this
07:24mountain, and this is the kind of precipice of crossing all that hardship to, apparently,
07:31the American dream. And your family, should they arrive, they're welcome here too. What do you say?
07:46I would like to draw something and then present it to you.
07:50You'd like to win the commission.
07:53Van Buren is offering him an opportunity to build this grand institute in Van Buren's
07:59mother's name, with all this artistic freedom. And I think it's very hard to
08:07believe for Laszlo. It's really like winning the lottery. So anyone would be in disbelief in this
08:15position. But, of course, there are undertones of that loneliness and longing. And he's alone at
08:25the end on the knoll in which he intends to, and ultimately proceeds to, build this life's work.
08:34It was very cold on this. It was a mountaintop. We had to be brought up with quads, so everybody
08:42would get in these quads and go all the way up. And this is where we started to construct the
08:47basis for the institute. So we worked in this location. We were outside of Budapest. It had
08:54a hopeful quality. It did have other things that may not be fit for this, but that were very telling
09:01of his journey. It spoke to all the complexity of both rebirth, renewal, the past lingering.
09:08In many ways, this character honors the journey of an artist, and how experiences and traumas of
09:17war and loss inform and influence the work that is being created, and the beauty of art to be
09:26created, stemming from some of the darkest times in our world history. And all of that speaks to
09:35me as an artist, and as a son of a Hungarian immigrant who is an artist in America. I'm
09:42definitely the right man for the job. I don't know who else really has had these influences
09:50in their lives who's fit to play the character. It's quite interesting. Thanks for watching.