It was a rare healthy moment in what is typically known as the biggest party and Hollywood drinker.
Brady Corbet, accepting a Golden Globe last month to direct “The Brutalist”, made clear how important his family was for the realization of the epic film. While talking, the camera cut three women who helped Corbet build it: “The incomparable” Mary Corbet, who raised him as a single mother; Mona Fastvold, his former “Musa” and coguionist of the film; and Ada, Corbet and the 10 -year -old Fastvold son.
“I love you very much, Ada James,” said Corbet, looking towards his daughter while crying with joy and relief.
After all, the film has been part of his life in one way or another since he was 3 years old, Corbet and Fastvold told NBC News in a recent interview at the Breuer building in the Upper East Side in Manhattan. The brutalist style structure, designed by the German Hungarian architect German Marcel Breuer, was completed in 1966 to house the Whitney American Museum of American Art.
To see the full interview, tune in Night news with Lester Holt Tonight at 6:30 pm et / 5:30 pm ct.
“She is our partner in crime,” Corbet said about Ada James. “She is in these films, and is, you know, with us in every step of the road. She is there with us on the monitor 90% of the time. “
“The Brutalist” is the fifth film collaboration between Corbet and Fastvold. He tells the story of the fictional Hungarian architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody) and his wife writer Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), survivors of the holocaust who fight to adapt to American life and deal with the demands of the rich industrial industrial Harrison van Buren (Guy Pearce).
It is a heavyweight contender at the academy awards this Sunday, where it is nominated for 10 Oscar, including the best film. Corbet is nominated for the best director, while he and Fastvold are ready for the best original script.
The partners take turns in the president of the project director to project. His previous collaborations include “Vox Lux” of 2018 starring Natalie Portman and the launch of 2020 “The World to Come” with Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby. The dynamic will continue this year with his last film, “Ann Lee”, a historical musical drama starring Amanda Seyfried. Fastvold directed, and Corbet co -wrote with her.
“Brady likes to write at night, and I write early in the morning,” said Fastvold, 38. “And then we wrote together in the middle of the day.”
They have reduced it to a routine, literally finishing the sentences of the other.
“We are not very dogmatic about it, and I think that writing in general, even if you are writing something on your own, which both occasionally do, is an improvisation process where, you know, the first improvisation rule is, you know, you never say no,” said Corbet. “And I think that pursuing a story, chasing an idea, it is riffing and build the proposals of others.”
A long way to the awards season
The arduous work of the duo raided the way for critical acclamation and awards. Corbet has already accumulated the best honors of director in the Golden Globes and Baftas, the United Kingdom equivalent of the Academy Awards. Brody, Jones and Pearce are nominated for acting Oscar.
But it was a difficult path for the Academy Awards for “The Brutalist”, which is three hours and 35 minutes (including an intermediate reminiscent of the epics of the Hollywood Golden Age).
While promoting the film, Corbet came to the headlines to underline how difficult it is to make a living as a filmmaker. In a recent interview about the podcast “WTF with Maron”, Corbet said he and Fastvold “won zero dollars in the last two films we made”, and said that “they had to live on a payment check of three years.”
It was also difficult to align for “the brutalist.” Corbet and Fastvold said they were rejected by multiple potential investors.
“If you were in position, it would probably have passed,” said Corbet. “I was following a global pandemic. People didn’t go to the movies. “
Finally, along with some of their own savings, Corbet and Fastvold prepared enough financing to make the film for about $ 10 million. That is a fraction of what large -scale Hollywood movies usually cost. As a comparison, the winner of the Oscar of the best film last year, the three -hour historical drama “Oppenheimer”, according to the reports, was budgeted at $ 100 million. (Universal Pictures, which launched “Oppenheimer” and whose international arm distributed “the brutalist” out of North America, shares a parent company with NBC News).
“The Brutalist” wrapped the filming in May 2023 and then premiered last year at the Venice Film Festival, where he obtained Raves criticism. It was collected by a prestigious A24 study and distributor, who placed the film in the crux of the Oscar career.
The film generated some controversy, after the Dávid Joncsó editor said the filmmakers used artificial intelligence to improve Brody’s Hungarian accents and Jones. Corbet and Fastvold told NBC News that its use of technology was minimal, ethical and necessary.
“I wanted the Hungarians to see the movie and make it sound true for them,” said Corbet.
House again
Beyond the praise, “The Brutalist” is an important personal milestone for Corbet, 36, who was raised by a single mother, left high school and began acting in films such as “Thirteen” of 2003 before settling in the director’s chair.
“I did not go to the film school at all. I raised in the films sets, so, of course, there probably is no better education than that, ”he said.
The success of “The Brutalist” is also gratifying for Corbet’s mother, Mary. “She is very, very touched by that,” said the director.
As the awards season arrives at a crescendo, corbet and fastvold they look forward to a family time, far from the set. The morning after the Oscars, he has returned to his life in Brooklyn, New York.
“You simply have to go home and, you know, pack lunch and prepare dinner and then … we return to a dark room and keep trying to make another movie,” said Fastvold.
Corbet, meanwhile, said he is anxious for “being just dad” again after months of jumping in airplanes every few days and visiting more than a dozen countries.
“I’ve been too far,” he said. “I think that when we finally slow down, really, we can really appreciate it.”
