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Adrien Brody joined the coveted club of two-time Oscar winners last night after picking up the Best Actor award for his role in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist.
With his lengthy acceptance speech, the New York-born actor also joined the much more obscure contingent of Academy Award winners to clock extended minutes at the Academy podium as they accepted their awards.
Brody spoke for 5 minutes and 40 seconds at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday. The Guinness World Records (GWR) currently cites Greer Garson’s 1943 Best Actress acceptance speech as the longest in Academy history at 5 minutes and 30 seconds. This would mean Brody’s is now the longest, but there’s some debate about the GWR figure. Some historians have clocked the full length of Garson’s speech around the seven-minute mark; however, only partial audio recordings of the speech remain. The Academy has a 3-minute 56-second transcript of the speech on its online archive. We’ve reached out to the Academy to confirm figures.
Nonetheless, Brody’s speech was certainly the longest during last night’s ceremony. Speaking in the Dolby, the actor gave a callback to Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, the film that landed him his first Best Actor award in 2003.
“I’m here once again to represent the lingering traumas and the repercussions of war and systematic oppression and of antisemitism and racism and othering,” he said. “I pray for a healthier and happier and more inclusive world. And I believe if the past can teach us anything, it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked. I love you and I appreciate you all. Let’s fight for what’s right.”
Brody began his speech by thanking God “for this blessed life,” and for “the tremendous outpouring of love” that he’s felt from so many. He went on to speak to the “fragile” profession that acting is, noting that while it often looks “glamorous,” the truth is that any career “can all go away” in a moment, no matter what one has accomplished.
“I think what makes this night most special,” he said, “is the awareness of that, and the gratitude that I have to still do the work that I love.”
Brody triumphed over a highly competitive field of nominees including Timothée Chalamet for A Complete Unknown, Colman Domingo for Sing Sing, Ralph Fiennes for Conclave and Sebastian Stan for The Apprentice. Fun fact: he’s the second consecutive Peaky Blinders star to win Best Actor, following Cillian Murphy with Oppenheimer last year. The Brutalist won a total of three awards from 10 nominations, also taking the categories of Cinematography and Original Score.
