“It has been decades,” Adrien Brody said backstage at Sunday’s Golden Globes, reflecting on his career from his Oscar win for The Pianist in 2003 to his first Golden Globe drama actor win tonight for The Brutalist.
“I’ve had a long life and career and lot of peaks and lot of valleys,” he said tonight. “It’s given me perspective, it’s given me great appreciation for this moment because it can go away.”
“I’m very grateful. I’ve had a very blessed career, but it’s still a challenge to find work such as this. You can have a triumph in your life again is healing and rewarding and what it speaks to of my family struggles and the hardships that they faced that have given me firm footing as an American actor.”
Brody, who plays a post-World War II Hungarian Jewish refugee architect in the U.S. in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, reflected on how personal the film was to him given how his mother and grandparents fled Hungary in 1936. In the movie, Brody’s architect finds lucrative work for an acerbic real estate tycoon played by Guy Pearce. The movie surprised tonight with wins for Best Picture – Drama as well as for Corbet winning Best Director.
Speaking about being a Jewish actor and connecting with the antisemitism that his character faces in The Brutalist, Brody said, “Unfortunately, there is a tremendous amount of antisemitism. It’s something that this character is fleeing and that persecution, not just for being Jewish, but for his artistic beliefs and his values and to be oppressed and judged and othered. And then come to come with hopes and dreams that is in the past and still face that, for those challenges to still exist; the fact that they do — it’s intimate to me the roles that I’ve played and, makes me feel very grateful to be a part of storytelling that speaks to this and many other issues that the film provides insight into.”
