The role of a Holocaust survivor is not new to Adrien Brody, who received an Oscar 20 years ago for his role as Wladyslaw Szpilman in "The Pianist".
Lászlo Tóth, the character in "Brutalisten", has the same background. The Jewish-Hungarian architect survives the Holocaust and comes to the USA – the land of opportunity – after World War II.
It was invaluable for me that I had previously played Szpilman and already learned so much about what Lászlo had gone through and wanted to leave behind, explains Adrien Brody.
"Brutalisten" has received ten Oscar nominations, including Best Film and for Brody in the lead role.
Concrete Buildings
"Brutalisten" refers to the architectural style of brutalism – large, imposing buildings made of concrete, also popular in Sweden during the post-war period.
When the wealthy businessman Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce) gets in touch with the renowned architect, educated at the Bauhaus school in Dessau, Lászlo Tóth gets to realize his big dream project.
But he is forced to pay a very high price and, as a Jew, is never fully accepted in 1950s American society. This type of racism still exists today and needs to be highlighted, believes Adrien Brody.
Hopefully, it will teach us something to see through this perspective what others have gone through in history, so that we understand what we need to do to find solutions and create a much more inclusive society, he says.
A Thankful Role
It is a role performance that has already earned Adrien Brody several statuettes and nominations at various galas during the winter. He is grateful.
I've been doing this for so long now. I've struggled and concentrated on doing well and really longed for a complex role like this.
And indeed, a film about architecture has a lot to say about the present day, according to director Brady Corbet, who reveals that the script for "Brutalisten" was written during Donald Trump's first term in Washington.
And the president showed an interest in architecture.
He introduced the program "Make federal buildings beautiful again", which was a kind of attack on brutalist buildings. And I thought that was a bit strange. For most architects from the Bauhaus school were Jews, says Corbet.
It's fascinating that this autocrat seems to admire (Nazi) Albert Speer's neoclassical style. There seems to be a connection there.
"Brutalisten" has its Swedish cinema premiere on February 7.
51 years old. Became the youngest to receive an Oscar for Best Actor at the age of 29 for "The Pianist" in 2003.
Has also filmed a lot with director Wes Anderson in films like "Darjeeling Limited", "The Grand Budapest Hotel", and "The French Dispatch".
Has also recently appeared in the Netflix film "Blonde", as well as the TV series "Peaky Blinders", "Succession", and "Poker Face".
Brody was born and raised in New York, with his mother having Hungarian roots. He had to learn the language almost from scratch for the role in "Brutalisten".
An architectural style that emerged in the 1950s and dramatically deviated from "classic" architecture with its grand buildings made of raw concrete. The name comes from the French word for raw concrete – béton brut.
Well-known Swedish buildings in the brutalist style are the Old Architecture School and Filmhuset in Stockholm, as well as the Technical University in Lund.
