'The Brutalist' director responds to film's controversy over using AI
Brady Corbet, director of critically acclaimed film "The Brutalist," is responding to criticism of his Golden Globe winning film after it was revealed artificial intelligence was used in the production to "perfect" the actors' accents.
Referring to "The Brutalist" stars Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, Corbet described their performances as "completely their own" following backlash and clarified the use of AI in the film.
In a statement from Corbet obtained by "Good Morning America" on Tuesday, the director said, "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."
He 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 comments come after Dávid Jancsó, an editor on the film, said in an interview with video production news publication RedShark News, published Jan. 11, that AI was used to improve the actors' accents when their characters spoke Hungarian in the film.
Jancsó said that after attempting to use automated dialogue replacement both with the actors, and then with alternative actors, they finally settled on using Respeecher, a Ukranian technology that focuses on speech synthesis which allows voices to be altered and switched.
"Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there. We were very careful about keeping their performances. It's mainly just replacing letters here and there. You can do this in ProTools yourself, but we had so much dialogue in Hungarian that we really needed to speed up the process, otherwise we'd still be in post," he told the outlet.
In the film, Brody plays Jewish Hungarian architect László Tóth, who immigrates to post-war America, where he attempts to rebuild his career while reconnecting with his wife, played by Jones.
Another critically acclaimed film that's also caused a stir this awards season is "Emilia Pérez." The Jacques Audiard-directed film, starring Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez, has also faced criticism for using AI. In a May interview conducted in French, the film's re-recording mixer Cyril Holtz said technology was used on Gascón's voice in some songs in the film.
Since the revelation that AI was used in "The Brutalist," critics have called into question whether the movie, whose primary focus is artistic integrity, should still be considered for some of the film industry's highest honors as the Academy Awards approach.
Corbet said production designer Judy Becker "did not use AI to create or render any of the buildings. All images were hand-drawn by artists."
"To clarify, in the memorial video featured in the background of a shot, our editorial team created pictures intentionally designed to look like poor digital renderings circa 1980," he said.
He added, "'The Brutalist' is a film about human complexity, and every aspect of its creation was driven by human effort, creativity, and collaboration. We are incredibly proud of our team and what they've accomplished here."
"The Brutalist" has already received three Golden Globe Awards including best motion picture (drama), best director and best performance by a male actor for Brody. The film was also nominated for nine awards at the 2025 BAFTA Film Awards and nine awards at the 2025 Critics Choice Awards.
