A benefactor to Adrien Brody’s architect character László Tóth, the patronage of Guy Pearce’s wealthy Harrison Lee Van Buren eventually metastasizes into something far darker as Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist examines balances of power and privilege. Giving one of the best performances of his career, Pearce initially brings a boisterous levity before the film’s central partnership curdles.
With the film now in limited release, Conor O’Donnell and I spoke with Pearce, who returned to The B-Side to discuss the insecurities and egoism at the heart of his character, the humor of the film, an overlooked performance you should seek out, his painful conversations with Adrien Brody about The Thin Red Line, and more. Find a transcription below, edited for clarity, and listen to the full conversation here.
The Film Stage: For your character, what is Brady giving you as inspiration? Obviously, he’s not 1:1 to any sort of Carnegie, but where are you coming from at the start?
Guy Pearce: Well, I mean, it was just all there in the script for me. You know, it’s not like I needed to kind of go and study anyone to get a sense of who he was. I think Brady did all that work. And there’s obviously characters that I’ve heard about along the way, just big, wealthy industrialists, the Rockefellers and various successful people along the way, who sort of exhibit a kind of performative, presentational style. The front is just as important as the work that they’re doing. So there was a sense that in the script, we were going to get to see the insecurities of this man and his envy and, sure, his ability to recognize great art and great skills, etc., but really, there’s a sort of an ego and a performative element to him that is vital in how he functions, and how he gets to feel like he is the one, that he’s the man, that he’s the one in control, and he’s the one in charge. Even this sort of faux humble sort of thing that he would do…
We saw it at New York Film Festival and couldn’t get over how funny the performance is, which I think is so important. The monologue you have to Adrien’s character about your parentage, it’s very mean ultimately, but that he thinks [it’s not mean] is inherently funny. And there’s a lot of moments in the film where you’re really injecting life into many scenes. And I wonder, when you’re dealing with a mean guy, let’s say, what is that negotiation of being funny or putting on a performance?
It’s funny, because I think the stuff that comes across as funny is actually the stuff where he’s the most earnest. He really believes what he’s saying. And on some level, he’s not very practiced at that. It’s László that sort of brings some of that out in him. He’s got someone who’s actually prepared to listen to him. He’s got a true, sensitive artist sitting in front of him. And so here’s a chance for me to kind of tell you this story that I wouldn’t tell the guys because they won’t get it. I’ll tell it in a brief way and kind of go, “Wow, you don’t want to know about that, right?” But this László guy, I feel like I can get into detail, but I don’t think he’s very practiced at that. So, this long-winded story–– I mean, even when I then say at the end, “I found our conversation intellectually stimulating,” it wasn’t even a conversation. It was just me talking.
[All laugh]
So there’s this very self-centered sort of approach. And we all know people who are sort of egomaniacs that don’t shut up, and you just kind of go, “Wow, this like a joke. This is kind of funny [and] annoying.” I guess if you don’t laugh, you’re just annoyed by them.
It’s such an essential piece of the film. You shot on film, which you’ve done in your career plenty of times, but obviously, probably less recently. Is there any added urgency to like, oh, actually, this [film] stock will run out. Or did Brady have to move fast no matter what?
No, it didn’t feel like he moved fast anyway. Brady’s got a lovely, relaxed, sort of calm quality about him, and funnily enough, lots of the shots we did were quite long. So it actually felt like we were going back to a more old-fashioned, slower-paced way of working. I’m sure the producers were saying to Brady, “We can only afford so many film cans, but Brady didn’t let that sort of trickle into how things were for us on set.” And I’ve heard this a bit that people can’t believe how epic this film feels for the small budget we had and the time we had. I think the film probably feels a lot more epic than it was when we were shooting it, also because the music’s really big and bold and the themes are big and I’m not suggesting it was a big-budget movie by any means, but I’ve worked on things that have felt far more rushed and limited than this felt like. This was eight weeks, I think. And some films are four or five weeks. But the thing of shooting on film, I mean, I’m 100 years old, so it was great to go back to how we used to do things in the silent movie era. It was nice. It was great.
We’ll use that as an excuse to talk about a B-side in your career: First Snow. What a fun movie. You’ve got J.K. Simmons, pre-Oscar win. What do you remember of that movie?
Well, that was a really great experience. Mark Fergus, who directed it, and Hawk Ostby, who wrote it, were delightful, really lovely, clever guys who then I ended up sort of inadvertently working with a couple of times on different things. They were some of the co-writers on Iron Man Three. They’re a great writing team. And Mark, it was his first time directing, I think, and a very shy, sort of sweet, quiet guy, and that was at a point in my working life where I was sort of starting to take over a little bit. So in a funny sort of way, I felt like I co-directed that with Mark. That’s too much of a stretch to say that, and Mark wouldn’t agree with me, but I certainly felt like it was a bit of teamwork in what we were doing. That was one of those films that was only shot in five weeks. And I was like, “If we don’t get this done this morning, we’re not going to get that done this afternoon. So why don’t we shoot this like this. And why don’t we do that like that, and do that like that?”
You had the experience.
Yeah. Well, I did. And, you know, not to brag or anything like that, but I just thought there are times when you just got to step up and move things along.
I love that you’re in salesman mode. One of the great things about your career is you’ve done every single [kind of role]. You’ve played villain, hero, etc. I guess the character in The Brutalist is in the same vein [of salesmen to an extent]. Jimmy Starks in First Snow is also playing a performance. It’s a performance on a performance.
And I’m always interested in that, because I think with so many of us in real life, you can just detect it straight away. When you meet someone and they’re doing their smoke and mirrors, and you’re like, “Okay.”
You even played Houdini, who was all smoke and mirrors.
That’s right. So there’s always something interesting, even if it’s on a subtle level, where we get to see privately, what’s going on for a character versus what they how they present to the world. So even just that as an idea, I’m really interested in, because I think we’re all going out there in the day trying to be more confident than we really are, trying to be smarter than we really are, trying to be more together than we really are, and all those things that bother us, that we struggle with, we’re too embarrassed to talk about all the time. If someone says, “How are you?” You don’t go, “Well, actually, you know…” We kind of go, “Yeah, no, I’m good.” So we’re all kind of acting in a way all the time anyway. So to get to play characters that are doing that is fascinating. And you’re right, and it’s funny, because I’d sort of forgotten as soon as you said First Snow, I’m thinking about the trauma that the character gets to in the end. But, of course, in the beginning, that’s right, he sort of playing a bit of a hot shot. I’ve got my big blow wave hair.
It’s great. You have a monologue at the beginning where you’re going sell jukeboxes at the bar that is exactly what you’re talking about. It’s a great feat of acting, because you see the performance, and then you see under it, and then obviously the real guy reveals himself as the movie goes on.
Well, I love that film. And Mark and Hawk were big fans of Memento and there’s something similar in that it’s about a character that becomes so internal––the worries and the concerns about what’s going to happen to him at the first snow just eat him alive. And, similar to Memento, you end up seeing him in a motel room on his own, almost wanting to take his own life. The funny thing about that film is the day that we had to film when there was snow, it actually snowed.
Really? That never happens.
Yeah, we all woke up that morning and went, “Wow, that’s weird. It snowed.”
And the line producer just crossed something off the budget.
That’s right, we don’t have to bring all that in. [Laughs]
You’re in a Cronenberg film, The Shrouds, which premiered at Cannes, and your in a Lee Tamahori film, The Convert, came out this summer.
Lee and I met in about 1994 or 95. He had Once Were Warriors and we had [The Adventures of] Priscilla [Queen of the Desert] and then I got to do L.A. Confidential and I saw him again and he knew Russell [Crowe]. So I saw him in L.A. a number of times, and immediately got on well with him, and always wanted to try and work together. And I was gonna do Bookworm––or what was it called, in the end, The Edge?
Yeah, were you going be the fashion photographer?
I think so, that’s what I was asked to do. And then I had to do something else, so we talked about working together for years. And then finally, when The Convert came around, I went, “This is it.” So to work with Lee was, was very special. I mean, I ended up getting tattoos, Maori tattoos from that experience. So it was quite a moving time for me, that film.
That’s lovely. In regards to The Brutalist and The Shrouds, you’re kind of in your villain era, a little bit. Although The Shrouds is a little more complicated. It’s not as evil as The Brutalist, let’s say.
I need to find a romantic comedy or something.
Absolutely, I’m all for it. Have you ever done a romantic comedy?
Oh, I’m not good at that stuff.
Ralph Fiennes talks about how he did Maid in Manhattan, which was a movie that was well-loved and did well. But he was kind of like, “I wanted to do it once, and then I was like, I’m all right. I did it one time.” Where’s your Maid in Manhattan?!
Yeah, that’s right. The funny thing is it’s like when I did Lockout and I was sort of like an action hero kind of guy. And people kept saying to me afterwards, “Right? So you’re going to do more action hero films?” And I’ve said, “Well, absolutely not. I mean, it’s this as much of a departure as a character as it was playing a drag queen, as far as I’m concerned.” So, I mean, maybe if I do romantic comedy, it’s just about the character, and then you move on to something else, like I always tend to.
Did you ever talk to your co-star Adrien Brody about how you both had your [action] moment at the same time? He was the star of Predators and you did Lockout.
We didn’t talk about that, but we both played Houdini in different films.
That’s right!
And I had a few friends on The Thin Red Line, so I was very aware of Adrien’s history with The Thin Red Line and how devastating that must have been. And I worked with Jim Caviezel in The Count of Monte Cristo and Jim ended up being elevated to the lead of that film. So I really wanted to raise that, even though I was nervous to raise it with Adrien, because I knew it was a harrowing experience for him, but I raised that with him, and got to talk through all that. And he was pretty damaged from that.
Bringing it back to The Brutalist, is there anything special in the film you would say to people to look out for, either in your performance or in the movie as a whole?
Like my mustache or something? [Laughs] Well, one thing to raise is, look, we all know it’s a very long film. But I promise people that it won’t feel that long. It really doesn’t feel that long. It totally earns it in fact requires itself to be that long. I mean, there’s an intermission, as we know. So I would impress upon people to make the effort, even though they know it’s that long. And the thing that we’ve been saying is people are happy to sit in front of their favorite TV show for seven hours and binge on that so, but it’s because they know they’re going to watch the thing that they know they want to watch, as opposed to this where they go, I don’t know what this is going to be. But not to be afraid of the running time.
The Brutalist is now in limited release.