Adrien Brody & The Brutalist: What the “AI Controversy” Actually Was — and Wasn’t

The conversation around AI in film is a storm of headlines, hot takes, and legitimate fears. The controversy over Oscar-winning film The Brutalist had all three. Yet, behind all the clickbait, there’s a practical story about a new tool, a specific creative challenge, and a major lesson for the entire industry.

In this article, we'll break down what actually happened with Adrien Brody's performance, how the voice conversion technology works, and what this all means for filmmakers.

Key Takeaways

• No robot delivered lines for Adrien Brody. Film editors used an AI to change how his Hungarian pronunciation sounded after he recorded it. 
• A new tool for an old problem. The voice conversion technology is similar to using CGI for post-production edits. The director had a specific creative challenge, and this tool was the solution.
• Words matter. The term "AI" is often loaded with fear and anxiety. Being more specific, with "voice conversion technology," helps demystify the process and allows for a more open and productive conversation.

Headlines vs. Reality: The Initial AI Controversy

In Hollywood right now, the word "AI" can stir up more stress than a last-minute script rewrite. After the landmark WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, any hint of technology stepping on artists' toes is cause for alarm — an absolutely earned fear. Into this perfect storm of anxiety dropped a single, poorly understood technical detail about The Brutalist.

Vague headlines linking AI to Adrien Brody’s Oscar-nominated performance were all it took to start the fire. The controversy quickly got a name—the search query "Adrien Brody: The Brutalist’s AI"—as many assumed his work was machine-generated. Calls to disqualify the film quickly followed.

But the reality was far less dramatic and a lot more technical. The AI in The Brutalist was a high-precision audio technology used to polish a few tricky Hungarian vowels in Brody's existing performance. No more, no less. His emotional delivery, the actual soul of the work he did on set, was never touched.

How AI Was Used to Perfect Adrien Brody’s Accent

The standard for authenticity on The Brutalist was completely unreasonable, in the best way possible. For film editor Dávid Jancsó, a native Hungarian speaker, the stakes were personal: he decided the dialogue would only be successful if his own family back home couldn't spot a single mistake.

The problem is, Hungarian isn’t a language you can just “get close to.” Not even for Adrien Brody, who drew on his heritage to deliver a powerful performance in Hungarian on set. The filmmakers tried traditional fixes like automated dialogue replacement (ADR) and found the results couldn't match the energy of his original take.

Instead, the team partnered with us at Respeecher to use a process of voice conversion — a form of high-precision audio editing that works along with the actor's original performance. As Respeecher’s Head of Delivery, Natalia Statyvka, explains:

"Our job was to subtly enhance the pronunciation while maintaining the authenticity of the actors’ voices and thus honoring the creative vision. Every vowel and consonant we adjusted had to sound completely natural."

Here’s a simple breakdown:

• The entire process is built on Adrien Brody’s unique delivery. His emotion, and cadence from the day of filming became the foundation.
• Using a native speaker’s pronunciation as a guide, the technology then finds and swaps out only the microscopic vowel or consonant sounds that need a touch-up. 
• The result is that the raw, authentic energy from the performance captured on set stays in the final cut. The technology serves the performance, not the other way around.

When to Use ADR, AI, or Dubbing: A Quick Guide

It's the sound that makes your eye twitch: a perfect take, an incredible performance, all ruined by the hum of an AC you swore was off. Welcome to post-production: the coffee is bitter and the deadlines were yesterday.

Fixing the audio is quite a dangerous game — you’ve chosen the wrong tool and just made things worse. Let's make sure that doesn't happen.

Ethical AI in Practice: Guidelines and Applications

The Brutalist’s AI controversy was a masterclass in the importance of communication. For any creator looking to use AI tools responsibly, the lessons from that firestorm can be distilled into three golden rules.

Rule #1: Start with Enthusiastic Consent

The team on The Brutalist got this right: Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones were "fully onboard" with the process. This is the ethical foundation that reframes the process from something being done to an actor to something being done with them as a creative partner. The voice data belongs to the artist, and they must have full control and buy-in.

Rule #2: Transparency is Your Best Friend

The details came out in a niche technical interview, which left a vacuum for social media and panicked headlines to fill. And they did — with a narrative of cheating and replacement.

If you don't frame the conversation around your creative choices, the internet will happily do it for you — and soon everyone is searching for "Adrien Brody: The Brutalist’s AI" under the assumption that a robot faked a performance.

• Disclose and explain. Do something more than a footnote in the credits. Take a sentence in an interview to say, "We used a voice conversion tool to perfect the accent, which is entirely different from generating a performance from scratch."
• Lead with the 'why'. Talk about the artistic reason for the choice. For The Brutalist, it was a dedicated pursuit of authenticity — a much better story than the one the headlines told.

Rule #3: Turn "If Only" into "How Soon?"

The most exciting use of this technology is that it unlocks creative ideas that used to be filed under "impossible." Ethical AI, used for enhancement, can remove stubborn roadblocks that have frustrated creators for years.

• "If only this archival audio wasn't so damaged..." — You can actually clean that up now. The AI restores the recording, pulling a clear performance out of any noise. You’re just finally able to hear what was there all along.
• "If only the flashback felt more authentic..." — You can now take an actor's voice and credibly de-age it to match their younger on-screen self. It’s still their performance, just convincingly dialed back a few decades so the whole scene feels right.
• "If only our lead actor could perform in every language..." — Instead of hiring a dozen different actors for localization, you can take your lead actor's performance and, with their full partnership, have it speak in other languages. The original emotion carries over — it's just suddenly fluent in Spanish.

Final Thoughts

Is AI a threat to filmmaking? Only if we let it be. A tool is only as dangerous as the intention behind it. Used without an artist's consent or transparency with the audience, it rightfully erodes trust. But the real lesson from The Brutalist is that a new technology, in the right hands, helped achieve a level of authenticity that wasn't possible before. 

“What Respeecher is doing will open up possibilities for performers to play characters from anywhere in the world whilst also honoring the nations those characters are from.”

— Brady Corbet, Director of The Brutalist

That vision—of opening up new, honorable possibilities for artists—is the core of our work at Respeecher. Our philosophy is to build the right tool for the right job, always with a commitment to quality and artist protection.

Sometimes, that job is preservation, to save a priceless on-set performance like in The Brutalist. Other times, it's generation, to create a flawless voice from scratch. Our new real-time Text-to-Speech API is built for exactly that — see how it works.