Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist has been riding the awards season wave, bagging ten Oscar nominations—including Best Picture, Best Director, and acting nods for Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones. But along with the praise, there’s been some serious side-eye. The reason? AI in post-production.
Now, AI in movies isn’t new—we’ve seen it de-age actors, recreate voices, and even touch up backgrounds. But The Brutalist took it a step further. The film’s editor, Dávid Jancsó, admitted that AI voice tech was used to smooth out Hungarian dialogue. Essentially, AI helped Brody and Jones sound more native.
This revelation has reignited Hollywood’s AI debate—how much tech is too much? The backlash has been real, and suddenly, The Brutalist is at the center of a controversy it probably didn’t see coming.
Jancsó spilled the AI tea in an interview with RedShark News, explaining how they used Respeecher’s voice tech to enhance Brody and Jones’ Hungarian pronunciation. Apparently, certain sounds were tough to master, so instead of endless retakes, AI stepped in. It blended Jancsó’s voice with the actors’, making them sound more authentic. The director said:
“If you’re coming from the Anglo-Saxon world certain sounds can be particularly hard to grasp. We first tried to ADR these harder elements with the actors. Then we tried to ADR them completely with other actors but that just didn’t work. So we looked for other options of how to enhance it.”
Fair enough, but in an industry already on edge about AI replacing jobs, this didn’t sit well. Some feel it’s harmless post-production polish. Others? They see it as a slippery slope toward AI deepfakes taking over performances.
One major factor was budget constraints. The Brutalist was made for under $10 million (via The Hollywood Reporter), which is peanuts compared to Hollywood blockbusters. Time and money were tight, so fixing dialogue manually wasn’t an option. AI was the shortcut.
Jancsó didn’t shy away from defending the choice. He argued that AI in film isn’t new—it’s just a tool, like CGI or sound mixing. The use of AI in The Brutalist has sparked a broader conversation in Tinseltown. The industries that have used it before—de-aging actors, creating digital extras, and recreating the voices of late performers. AI performance tweaks raise bigger worries. Critics say AI’s helpful, but it needs clear rules to protect creatives. Studios could one-day swap actors for AI.
The Brutalist even faced other AI-related allegations. Some claimed AI was used for architectural designs in the film’s final scenes. Corbet denied this, but it didn’t stop the whispers. Hollywood’s still figuring out where AI fits in.
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