Did Adrien Brody Use AI in 'The Brutalist'? The Film's Success Sparks Fears in Hollywood

The use of technology in any industry can come with controversy as fears swirl that human workers might be replaced by robots. But the fears of impingement in an industry are particularly sharp in Hollywood, where physical labor meets creativity and imagination.

For the Oscar-winning film The Brutalist, produced by studio A24 and starring Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) has become a particularly controversial point.

After an interview revealed that AI was used as part of the production process, people began raising an outcry and demanding that Adrien and the film as a whole be disqualified from 2025 Oscar nominations. Why are people so upset with the use of AI in The Brutalist, and did Adrien even use it in the film?

Here's what we know about the details behind the controversy and why the use of AI sparks so many big feelings.

The Brutalist follows a fictional architect, László Tóth, as he navigates immigrating from Hungary to the United States after World War II. Played by Adrien, László's struggles are heartwrenching and his journey soulful.

But the film's plot has been overrun with claims of controversy and people crying foul after The Brutalist’s editor, Dávid Jancsó, revealed that he used AI to perfect Adrien and Felicity's Hungarian accents in the films.

Dávid, who is himself Hungarian, shared in an interview with RedSharkNews that AI editing programs were used during brief voiceovers by Adrien and Felicity to ensure their accents were authentic enough to fool native speakers. Dávid said that the editing could have been done by humans, but to save time and be mindful of production deadlines, they turned to AI.

Ukrainian program Respeecher handled accent perfection, and both Adrien and Felicity were involved in the process.

Once this information was released, some began demanding that Adrien and the film lose their Oscar nominations, which ultimately ended in three major Oscar wins for the film. Critics claimed that the use of AI meant that neither Adrien nor Felicity's performances were authentic, and therefore couldn't be awarded.

But others pushed back, pointing out that the use of AI was limited and didn't change the actors' overall performances, which seems to be what the Academy ultimately agreed with.

But why are people so pressed about the fact that AI was used in voice editing? The reasons are layered and complicated. Just like when it comes to generative images, AI use in any part of art production comes with pushback and controversy.

Online, critics suggest that robots use already-existing art to generate the images and art they are prompted to make, which means that it's not original at all and steals both ideas and jobs from existing human artists.

The controversy over AI voice editing is similar.

In addition, many worry that by perfecting voice-editing software, the world is opening itself up to a concerning level of deepfakes and what can happen in a world where an AI program can convincingly generate your face and your voice and use them to make any controversial statement the inputter might desire.

Art is one of the most uniquely human inventions in history, and to outsource it to robots comes with risks and dangers. But on the other hand, in an increasingly technological world with ever-increasing integration, learning to work with generative and corrective AI opens up opportunities for new growth and methods of creation.

However, it's likely that it will take a very long time before human beings are comfortable enough with AI not to balk whenever it appears in creative spaces, as it did with The Brutalist.