The Brutalist: At the start, Brady Corbet had hired Sebastian Stan, Marion Cotillard …

Because of the covid, this independent film took several years to materialize. Adrien Brody tells us about his “mourning” of a project that he was finally able to shoot, not quite as planned.

The first time we have heard of The brutalistwhich is now one of the favorites to the Oscars, preceded by excellent criticism, it was in 2018, its director Brady Corbet announcing wanting to tell this story with his wife Mona Fastvoldco-author by his side of The childhood of a chef (2015) and Vox Lux (2018). He already imagined a fresco of more than three hours, telling the American epic of a Hungarian Jewish architect, who leaves Europe for the United States at the end of the Second World War, and he had a Entective.

In September 2020, Deadline revealed the five -star casting for this project, mainly from the stars La CAA agency: Joel Edgerton (Loving) had to embody the architect, beforeAdrien Brody is definitely chosen, Marion Cotillard would have been his wife, a role finally held by Felicity Jonesand the American site also mentioned Mark Rylance (The spy bridges), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes at Marvel), Vanessa Kirby (The Crown),, Isaach de Bankolé (Black Panther),, Alessandro Nivola (American Bluff),, Raffey Cassidy (Killing a sacred deer) And Stacy Martin (Nymphomaniac).

The brutalist: the birth of an exceptional filmmaker (critic)

Since this enticing announcement, made in parallel with the Toronto festival in order to intrigue distributors who would like to commit to promoting it, the project, which is recalling an independent production and not a studio film, has not stopped ‘Evolve … and to be postponed. Its filming was scheduled for January 2021, first in Poland, funded by a partnership between several companies: Andrew Lauren Productions, Protagonist Pictures, Brookstreet Pictures, Killer Films, Three Six Zero Group, Intake Films and finally Proton Cinema. Then the team had to film the rest of the film in Hungary, then in Tuscany, and finally in the United States.

The global epidemic of COVID-19 has touched many shoots, such as Mission: Impossible 8whose shots in different places in the globe had to be pushed back several times. Ditto here, but with the fear that the project did not leave, so much Corbet had trouble gathering ten million dollars To stage his vision: he wanted in particular to turn The brutalist In Vistovision format, which meant nearly thirty coils of dandruff, or more than 150 kilos of film!

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First postponed from January to August 2021, the green light from The brutalist was reinforced in the spring of 2022, then at the very end of the year, and finally in March 2023. Phew of relief for the team, which managed to launch the cameras on 16, reorganizing the scenes to start in Budapest, And who has put everything down in less than two months. But with a partially upset cast: if Isaach de Bankolé, Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy and Stacy Martin are still there, the others had to leave the ship, taken by other projects. In addition to Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, cited above, The brutalist Will finally be worn by Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Ariane Labed …

“The project The brutalist has taken years to come up, explains Adrien Brody In the new issue of First (n ° 559with David Lynch on the cover). It was a question that I did it five years ago, then there was the covid, other complications, the film moved away from me, I ended up mourning it. However, I knew that I was made for this role. There is a very strong intimate dimension that plays there, because we have turned to Budapest, the city of my mother (photographer Sylvia Plachy – Editor’s note)that she and her parents had to flee in 1956. The memory of immigration was very present in my education as a kid from Queens, in New York. And my mother sometimes translated into her art this experience of uprooting, which is quite close, thematically, of the journey of Laszlo Toth in The brutalist. “

Same story from Alessandro Nivola, which told Forbes His hiring by a very enthusiastic Brady Corbet … and the long wait before being able to really turn in The brutalist.

“He called me to offer me this: ‘What if we were shooting a film in Poland in three weeks?’ I was in mode: ‘Wait, with everything that is going on right now? We can barely get out of the house. ‘ But he was convinced that we were going to be able to turn him at one point or another. Finally, we had to wait three and a half years before we could make this film. “

Ironically, Adrien Brody finds himself in competition with Sebastian Stan For the Oscar Best actor. The actor of Romanian origin had been initially chosen for a secondary role of The brutalistbut as he embodies Donald Trump in the heart of The Apprenticethe two actors will be face to face for this prestigious price.

Here is the trailer for The brutalistcurrently in the cinema:

Adrien Brody: “The brutalist dialogs of course with the pianist”