'Brutalist' criticized for using AI to adjust Adrien Brody's accent: 'This is a disgrace'

"The Brutalist" has received no shortage of praise or awards nominations.

The film won best drama and best drama actor at the Golden Globes, is up for nine BAFTA Film Awards and is expected to be a contender in the forthcoming Oscar nominations.

But director Brady Corbet and star Adrien Brody have come under fire after the film's editor Dávid Jancsó revealed that AI was used to enhance Brody’s accent.

"The Brutalist" tells the story of László Tóth (Brody), a fictional Hungarian-Jewish architect who, after surviving the Holocaust, emigrates to the United States.

The artificial enhancement is used in a scene where a letter from Brody’s character to his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) is read aloud, entirely in Hungarian. Jancsó used AI tools from Respeecher – a Ukrainian software company – to enhance the dialogue.

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Viewers weren't pleased with the news. “Don't think its too reactionary to say this movie should lose the academy buzz it was getting,” one posted on X.

In response to the backlash, Corbet said in a statement to USA TODAY that the two actors' performances were "completely their own."

"The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft,” his statement read.

In an interview with the video technology site Red Shark News published Jan. 11, Jancsó said it was difficult for Brody and Jones to perfect the distinct Hungarian accent.

“I am a native Hungarian speaker and I know that it is one of the most difficult languages to learn to pronounce,” he said. “We coached (Brody and Jones) and they did a fabulous job but we also wanted to perfect it so that not even locals will spot any difference.”

Brody and Jones fed their voices into the AI software Respeecher, and Jancsó recorded his own voice as well to “finesse the tricky dialect.”

“Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there,” Jancsó added. “We were very careful about keeping their performances. It’s mainly just replacing letters here and there.”

He clarified that filmmakers could have done the process themselves using Pro Tools, but given the sheer volume of Hungarian dialogue, they “really needed to speed up the process.”

Corbet's statement said Brody and Jones worked with a dialect coach for months to perfect their accents. "This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production," he said.

AI was not used on any English-speaking parts, which make up the majority of the film, A24 told USA TODAY in a statement.

Jancsó also shared that generative AI was used to create a “series of architectural drawings and finished buildings” to “create these tiny little details that we didn’t have the money or time to shoot.”

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Some social media users have called for "The Brutalist" to be disqualified from receiving further accolades at the BAFTAs or Oscars.

On X, one user called it a “disgrace” to use AI to “not only avoid paying visual artists for their work” but to manipulate the actors’ accents as well, which is “a fundamental aspect of … acting.”

The objections arrive after the 2023 SAF-AFTRA strike, in which one of the central concerns was studios’ use of generative AI to replicate performers' likeness, faces and voices. While the strike is over, the fight for AI protections is ongoing.

But "The Brutalist" isn't the only film to enhance actors' voices this awards season. Netflix's movie musical "Emilia Perez," which took home four Golden Globes earlier this month, used AI to increase the vocal range of Karla Sofía Gascón by blending Gascón singing's with Camille, the French pop star who co-wrote the film’s score. And in Angelina Jolie's Maria Callas biopic "Maria," the actress' opera vocals are blended with real recordings of the star.

"Sometimes you hear one percent of Angelina’s voice," director Pablo Larraín told IndieWire. "A couple of times, not very often, but it does happen, you listen to sixty percent or seventy percent of Angelina’s voice."

In the Red Shark News interview, Jancsó recognized that it is “controversial in the industry” to talk about AI, but believes that shouldn’t be the case.

“We should be having a very open discussion about what tools AI can provide us with,” he said. “There’s nothing in the film using AI that hasn’t been done before. It just makes the process a lot faster.”

Every aspect of the ‘The Brutalist’was "driven by human effort, creativity, and collaboration," Corbet said in his statement. "We are incredibly proud of our team and what they’ve accomplished here.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ‘Brutalist’ slammed for enhancing Adrien Brody's accent with AI