The Brutalist director Brady Corbet is defending the use of AI to alter Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones’ Hungarian accents in his acclaimed film.
“Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own,” Corbet, 36, said in a statement to Variety on Monday, January 20. “They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed.”
The filmmaker added: “This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production. The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.”
The Brutalist stars Brody, 51, as László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor who emigrated to America following World War II. Jones, 41, plays Tóth’s wife.
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Controversy arose after RedShark News, which covers tech, published an interview with the film’s editor, Dávid Jancsó, on January 11. In that interview, Jancsó said that tools from Respeecher, a Ukrainian software company, were used to make Brody and Jones’ Hungarian speech more authentic.
“We coached [them] and they did a fabulous job but we also wanted to perfect it so that not even locals will spot any difference,” the Hungarian editor told the outlet, explaining that he recorded his voice into the AI program, as did the two leads.
“Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there,” Jancsó acknowledged. “We were very careful about keeping their performances. It’s mainly just replacing letters here and there.”
Jancsó told RedShark News that generative AI was incorporated into the end of the film, which showed architectural drawings from Brody’s character. However, Corbet explained in his statement Monday: “[Production designer] Judy Becker and her team did not use AI to create or render any of the buildings. All images were hand-drawn by artists.”
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At the Golden Globe Awards earlier this month, The Brutalist won three major trophies: Best Motion Picture — Drama, Best Director for Corbet, and Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture — Drama for Brody. (The accolade came 23 years after he scored an Academy Award for The Pianist at age 29.)
“I am very grateful,” Brody told Us Weekly and other reporters in the Beverly Hilton Press Room following his win. “I’ve had a very blessed career, but as you can see, it’s still a challenge to find work that is as meaningful as this.”
“That you can have a triumph in your life again is incredibly healing and rewarding,” Brody added, noting that the movie “speaks to my family’s struggles and the hardships that they’ve faced.”
