Adrien Brody has gained the Academy Award for Greatest Actor for his main function in The Brutalist, wherein he performs fictional Jewish Hungarian architect László Tóth.
The award marks Brody’s second Oscar win. He first gained in 2003 for his efficiency as Wladyslaw Szpilman in The Pianist, a job that has garnered comparisons to Brody’s work as Tóth. As critic Siddhant Adlakha writes in his Mashable evaluation of The Brutalist, “There’s not a single moment where [Brody] isn’t reaching into the depths of his soul, mining some corner of either his previous roles (such as in The Pianist) or of his mother’s experience as a Hungarian woman of Jewish descent forced to flee her country in the 1950s.”
Mashable High Tales
Along with the Oscar, this awards season noticed Brody taking residence the BAFTA, the Critics Selection Award, and the Golden Globe. He beat out fellow Oscar nominees Timothée Chalamet (A Full Unknown), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave), and Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice).
In his rambling, almost six-minute lengthy speech — throughout which he shut down the playoff music by saying it was “not my first rodeo” — Brody informed viewers, “I’m here once again to represent the lingering traumas and the repercussions of war and systematic oppression and of antisemitism and racism and othering. I pray for a healthier and a happier and a more inclusive world.”
