The Kinda Comeback of Adrien Brody

As of the writing of this piece, Adrien Brody is the frontrunner for Best Actor at the 2025 Oscars for his performance in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist. He claimed the Golden Globe and BAFTA trophies and has the lion’s share of critical dedication in his corner (although a SAG Award curveball to Timothee Chalamet has shaken things up in the final stretch.) The race for Best Actor this season has been a weird one in that it was a sparsely fought field and no obvious victor emerged until relatively recently. The nominees were all but locked in months in advance but it wasn’t until Brody won the Golden Globe that we got a sense of who could take home Oscar gold. He didn’t seem an evident choice at first as a previous winner, but now it all makes so much sense.

Like most actors who have been described as experiencing a career renaissance in recent years, Brody never stopped working. He’s got a full filmography with no breaks over the past 22 years since he won his Oscar. He’s formed a long-standing collaborative relationship with Wes Anderson over five films and has worked with Peter Jackson, Woody Allen, Andrew Dominik, and M. Night Shyamalan. He was in Succession for a couple of episodes, as well as a Stephen King adaptation on Epix and HBO drama Winning Time. In terms of a jobbing actor a consistent amount of projects to his name, Brody is highly successful. But once you’ve won an Oscar, reaching the pinnacle of your craft (and becoming the youngest person to do so in that category), everything you do afterward is measured by that mighty standard.

For a long time, many cited Brody as an example of a post-Oscar flop, someone who didn’t measure up to the mighty expectations that follow a Best Actor triumph. He’d gone from a bit-part player and supporting scene-stealer to a bona fide leading man, but that didn’t come with a slew of critically beloved projects. The Village undisputably rocks but Brody’s performance as a developmentally disabled man is easily the worst and most misjudged aspect of the film. King Kong was hugely expensive but over-padded to the point where certain characters, including Brody’s, became totally pointless. Then there were the generic action flicks like Dragon Blade and American Heist that felt more like late-era Bruce Willis flicks than something Brody would do. Every now and then, you’d get a Midnight in Paris or The Grand Budapest Hotel but most of the 2010s felt like a creatively barren period for the actor unless he was in a minor supporting part. There were a lot of cash-grab forgettable projects and stuff like that seldom feels fun.

Some theorized that Brody’s career was hindered by two incidents: him forcing a kiss onto Halle Berry during his Oscars acceptance speech, and a truly cringe appearance on SNL where he wore a dreadlock wig and faked a bad Jamaican accent. Said kiss, which Berry did not consent to and said was unplanned, was mostly written off at the time as a display of excitement from Brody over his Oscar win, and he made reference to it at the following year’s ceremony. Berry recently congratulated Brody over Instagram about his current The Brutalist success and called him her ‘friend.’ With the SNL cringe, it was recently commemorated as one of the problematic sketches of old on the show’s 50th anniversary celebration. Because Brody was never invited back to guest host, rumours swirled that he was banned. There’s no evidence of that. But it’s not hard to see how the story formed.

And, of course, I have to briefly mention my all-time favourite celebrity gossip story: that time Adrien Brody bought a castle to be his love nest for him and Elsa Pataky, which they showed off in a hilarious photoshoot for Hello magazine. Then she left him for Chris Hemsworth. I imagine a lot of those schlocky action movies were helpful in paying for his fancy house. I could talk about this all day but I’ll leave it for now. Just read my old post on that story. Brody is now dating Georgina Chapman, the Marchesa co-founder who is perhaps better known for being the former Mrs. Harvey Weinstein.

This isn’t a comeback, much in the same way that Demi Moore’s recent critical revival and career reassessment isn’t one. But, like with Moore, there is a sense that Brody has returned in some way, be it to our greater attention or the industry’s renewed awareness of his abilities. No actor is on top for their entire career but it certainly felt like Brody’s time at the peak was shorter than expected for a Best Actor winner. It’s less an indictment of Brody’s career than a reminder that there’s no such thing as being on top all the time, and that the film industry is a fickle beast. Not everyone gets to be Daniel Day-Lewis, and even he had a few turkeys in his filmography.

Brody’s fellow actors seem highly drawn to him this season. His performance in The Brutalist is a non-stop rollercoaster of emotions, a display as monumental as the grand film itself. He goes through it all, ageing over the course of many years and dealing with the kind of trauma that destroys lives. It’s big but that feels too reductive a description for what he’s doing. It’s easy to see why voters are drawn to it but also not tough to imagine many finding The Brutalist and Brody’s part within its creation too much to take in. Is it too allegorical for a literal-minded industry? It’s a serious performance by an actor taking it, and himself, very seriously. His acceptance speeches have been highly polished and professional in the way that a capital-A Artiste would be. You couldn’t imagine Brody pulling off the sardonic jokester persona of fellow nominee (and Succession co-star) Kieran Culkin.

If Brody loses on Sunday night, it’ll be a genuine shock. The odds and the narrative feel very much in his favour, and the latter certainly makes more of an impact than the former. What I’m more intrigued by is where his career goes after this. Will he decide to focus more on these kinds of personal projects or is he happy to return to his workmanlike approach? The expectations of an Oscar winner feel very different now than when he won 22 years ago. Nobody would feel he’d wasted the win if he did more shlock. It all feels worth it if you get a role like The Brutalist every once in a while.