“And the Oscar for Best Actor goes to Adrien Brody.” If you had caught the 2025 Oscars that aired on March 2nd, you might be familiar with these words. If you almost lost it when you heard that someone who was not Timothée Chalamet won the category for Best Actor for his role in A Complete Unknown, don’t worry, you are not alone. You, like many of the 20 million Americans watching the 2025 Oscars, were quite upset that this guy, who you had never heard of until now, had won an Oscar for a movie you also have, well, never heard of. Who is Adrien Brody? Why did he spit his gum at his wife before accepting his award, and why did he break the record for the longest Oscars acceptance speech and—wait a second— is he the same guy who had multiple odd exchanges with Hallie Berry in front of millions of people, but more importantly, right in front of his wife? Why do people who are not already familiar with Brody’s work only know his name for being an agent in scandals rather than his career as an esteemed actor? Through an exposition of his infamous vocation and an exploration of the two films that won him the subjectively most important award of all time, this essay will shift and inform your understanding of the real Adrien Brody.
Queens native Adrien Brody is an actor with decades of experience under his belt. Being of Polish and Jewish descent helped him land many of the roles for which he has become famous. His trajectory as an actor, however, is not as satisfying as one might think. Brody began his acting career at the age of 15 when he got his role in a low-budget short film Home at Last. As he started to get noticed by other filmmakers, Brody had been cast in smaller roles in less notable movies. It was in the late 90s that Brody finally got consistent roles in a variety of films that, for the most part, people enjoyed. For example, Steven Soderbergh’s 1993 King of the Hill and Terrence Malick’s 1998 The Thin Red Line, have an average of 3.9 stars on film-enthusiast app, Letterboxd. On March 28th, 2003, Brody’s whole world changed. He was cast to be the protagonist of a Roman Polanski Holocaust movie titled The Pianist. No one could have expected the grandeur of Brody’s performance in this film. The film did spectacularly well and won three Oscars at the 75th Academy Awards—one of them being Adrien Brody winning Best Actor. With its timeless success as a film accompanied by astonishing visuals and musical representations of an important history, one would think that the name Adrien Brody would be widely recognized like those of greats like Brad Pitt or Leo Dicaprio. To everyone’s surprise, just as quickly as Brody gained fame, he fell out of it. From the years 2003 to 2006 he was only cast in dismissible and forgettable roles. It was not until the great Wes Anderson noticed him when Brody’s life changed forever. In 2007, he was cast in Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Unlimited, his 2009 Fantastic Mr. Fox, 2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2021 The French Dispatch, and 2023 Asteroid City. Among his various roles within Anderson’s world, Brody slowly started to regain recognition with bigger filmmakers. He was slowly making his way back up the ladder, but getting another Oscar for these performances was still a long shot.
Among those filmmakers was Brady Corbet, director of smaller but notable movies like his 2018 Vox Lux and 2023 The Crowded Room. Corbet has always had an eye for greatness, on both the cinematic and casting levels. Brady Corbet had a vision to create a masterpiece: a story following the life of a Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor and architect who, after moving to America, has the opportunity to create his buildings once more. Although a fictional story, it combines the lives of the many revolutionary architects who pioneered how the craftsmanship of some of the most iconic buildings in the world was understood. The man to play this role was Adrien Brody. The Brutalist had a budget of less than 10 million dollars but still transcended the expectations of many.
I had the opportunity to watch this film on 70 mm at the AMC by Lincoln Center. It was absolutely astonishing. Although 3.5 hours with an intermission, every scene in this film is truly a work of art. Corbet created a piece that captured the soul of brutalist architecture through a moving story. Accompanied by a beautiful original and empowering score, the film was packed with emotion and hardship that was felt throughout the entire theater. What brought this film together was Adrien Brody’s performance. His acting encapsulated years of his own family history and left it all on the screen. You felt his tears in your eyes, you heard his thoughts in your head. His performance was spectacular. Even after becoming familiar with his insane career as an actor, I am a firm believer that Adrien Brody is a fantastic actor. At this point in my article, you might be wondering when I am going to bring up Brody’s “AI scandal”. Upon doing passive research on this film and Brody’s performance, I found out that Corbet and his team had used artificial intelligence to aid both Adrien Brody and his co-star Felicity Jones’ Hungarian accents. Well, that surely isn’t good. In my opinion, Adrien Brody’s performance would have been just as exceptional without artificial intelligence-enhancements. An faulted accent should not dictate one’s ability to portray a character with so much soul and passion.
Right after the Oscars, I decided to watch the performance that got Adrien Brody his first Oscar: The Pianist. As previously mentioned, The Pianist came out around twenty years before The Brutalist, which means that Brody had twenty years to tweak and grow in and out of acting styles. You would think that after being so unsuccessful in his acting career he would change something in order to get another Oscar-worthy role. However, in my opinion—which is perhaps flawed as I am not an acting professional—he did not change one thing about his ability to act and train for his roles. Similar to the plot of The Brutalist, Roman Polanski’s 2002 film The Pianist follows the true story of an esteemed Jewish pianist Władysław Szpilman, as he tries to survive in Warsaw during Nazi occupation. The film, although not created to the same level of cinematic perfection as The Brutalist, was an emotionally jarring one that completely opened my eyes to the devastating stories of Holocaust survivors at the individual level. To put it bluntly, I loved the film and thought that it was executed perfectly. Brody’s performance was moving, it was real, and it retained the same emotion he so effortlessly captures in every one of his roles. In order to play a famous Jewish pianist during the Holocaust, Brody had put himself through months of excruciating work. In preparation, he had given up his car and apartment to practice withdrawal, took piano lessons for 4 hours a day for months on end, and lost 30 pounds, making him 6’1 and 130 pounds for this role. Not only did Brody perform beautifully, but he put his own body and mind at risk to ensure the most genuine portrayal of Władysław Szpilman. I, along with the majority of the film community, commend Adrien Brody for his raw commitment to his work. It is very inspiring.
The question remains: is Adrien Brody really worth two Oscars? Yes, he is. He is an actor dedicated to his craft and identity. He overcame decades of hardship and loss and proved millions of doubters wrong. Additionally, he is unapologetically himself. Those qualities are what make up my own criteria for the winner of Best Actor. Now I know that you might be reading this and still are very firm on your belief that Timothée Chalamet should have won, but I hope that when you revisit this idea, you can understand that it takes years to reach success and you will receive it when the time is right. Do not give up on your dreams and aspirations and maybe, just maybe, you too can be an Oscar winner.