'Crash' director gets candid on 'The Brutalist' AI row

The Brutalist had a shining performance during the award season. But its race into the Oscars was dogged by a claim that AI was used on the lead star Adrien Brody's voice to make his character’s Hungarian accent more accurate.

However, David Cronenberg, known for making body horror genre films such as Crash, had a different take on the controversy.

“I must confess, there was a scandal [with] The Brutalist,” the Canadian filmmaker said at the London Soundtrack Festival. “There was a discussion about Adrien Brody… but apparently they used artificial intelligence to improve his accent."

He continued, "I think it was a campaign against The Brutalist by some other Oscar nominees. It’s very much a Harvey Weinstein kind of thing, though he wasn’t around.”

“We mess with actors’ voices all the time. In the case of John (Lone), when he was being this character, this singer, I raised the pitch of his voice [to sound more feminine]." 

"And when he’s revealed as a man, I lowered to his natural voice. This is just a part of moviemaking," David concluded.

Despite the controversy, Adrien won the Best Actor for The Brutalist at the Academy Award.