Guy Pearce on The Brutalist: “It’s about an artist trying to stay uncompromising”

When Guy Pearce is recognized on the street, the Noir period no Confidential (1997), Christopher Nolan’s non-linear film Memmento (2000) and the riotous drag comedy The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) are the features people want to talk about. The next tier of fan-favorite candidates, he says, include The King’s Speech ( 2010), The Hurt Locker (2008) and Proposition (2005). But what about his first screen role, in the soap opera that made him famous in the 1980s Last century Britain and beyond? “Mike is lifted from the neighbors a bit, which is nice,” he explains.

In Brady Corbett’s lead, Pierce gives an enigmatic, reptilian performance as Harrison Lee Van Buren, a wealthy industrialist in post-war Pennsylvania, and the Hungarian commissionaire Laszlo Toth (Adrien Brody), a Holocaust survivor and recent convert from the swamp. weto build a huge community center. What follows is an epic tale of survival, action and strength, which expands into 3 hours 35 minutes including a 15-minute intermission in its printing.

On a cold January day, we sat down with Pearce in a central London hotel to discuss the film he was nominated for BAFTA For Best Supporting Actor. The film received eight other nominations including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brody, Best Supporting Actress for Felicity Jones (who plays Tóth Erzsébet’s wife) and Best Director for Corbet, while Corbet and co-star Mona Fastvold take home Best Original Screenplay. The film has since received 10 Academy Award nominations.

What grabbed you about your role as Van Buren?

Guy Pearce: Its complexity. He has a very good entrance, but the way his different behaviors and ways that he tries to control, and people around him immediately enabled me to see that there was a darkness there that he was trying to suppress, and there is an ego that he beautifully manages to act as if he doesn’t have it. There’s a great performance element to his presence, but there’s also bitterness and envy. There is also a great taste. It tasted really good, but I think this comes at a cost; He doesn’t know what to do with it.

It’s funny, I thought of Salieri in The Life of Amadeus. We see this wonderful scene [in the 1984 film] With F. Murray Abraham where Mozart can’t write anymore and basically dictates. Salieri writes it and he knows as he writes it how incredible it is, but he cannot do it himself. I had similar feelings about that, in a way that I recognized this great talent in Adrian’s character but was envious that I couldn’t do it myself.

Did Brady or Mona or both give you any background on it? Was Van Buren based on any particular character?

No one is specific. I’m sure there are many wealthy industrialists like the Rockefellers that Brady would have talked about, but they don’t necessarily help me understand who he was, and more so just because Brady has an interest in history and because it was quite clear who this person was on the page. It wasn’t like I was struggling to find it by any means.

Some people have read Scientists as a film about filmmaking, with Tóth as the director and Van Buuren as a shepherd who has his own demands and perhaps wants credit at the end of it. Do you think there is anything in that reading?

Yes, I think so. It’s basically about an artist trying to stay relentless, and it’s a very personal story for Brady because he’s an artist trying to make the movies he wants to make, which he’s very aware of. I think a lot of filmmakers are beholden to money, which is fair enough to an extent, but at the same time I think a lot of films are compromised and end up being a commission. So it’s a beautiful irony that Brady was the one who got this movie, and he had to make it the way he wanted it. He didn’t want to wait seven years to make it, but he still had to do it.

Van Buren is a fascinating character. It is very unpleasant, but he also wants to build this monument to his mother. To what extent do you sympathize with his point of view?

Well, a lot. My mother sadly passed away in the middle of the process, so it felt really personal to me in a way. I haven’t been able to get to the point of wanting to build a monument to my mother, but I have a lot of pictures around her house, so I understand it and I think that’s a real element in Van Buuren’s makeup that was obviously influenced by the death of his mother, but at the same time, getting László to build this His part is also building more of his own empire, so he uses László to boost his own ego.

She has played a variety of characters, and heroic types, such as Ed Exley In no Confidential (1997) to villains like Charlie Burns in The Proposal (2005), even someone in the middle like Leonard Shelby in Memento (2000). Do you have a favorite type of role and what does that describe?

Me, no. It’s funny because people always say to me, “What are you looking for next? What kind of role are you looking for?” And I just say, “I’m not looking for anything. I’m just waiting to see what the universe brings.” Because my best response to something and my best experience is when I read something that surprises and feeds my imagination and takes me somewhere I hadn’t thought of.

So the idea of ​​looking for a specific role makes no sense at all. I know this isn’t what you asked for, but it’s funny because it also, depending on what roles you may have played recently, may then dictate what I say yes to next. If I do things that exist in a certain world, I might need something refreshing, but I don’t know that until I read it and go, “Yes, this.”

What do you do next?

I don’t have a job planned, but I have another film called Inside, which is a prison film that I made in Australia with Cosmo Jarvis. We have this movie coming out, and I did a movie called Killing Faith, which is a Western that we did in the states midway through the year. So some stuff hasn’t come out yet, but I’m just sitting down and reading a bunch of stuff and seeing what I do next. I’m focusing more on releasing this one and trying to enjoy this moment as much as I can.