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Brady Corbet is currently experiencing the biggest success of his career with his epic indie The Brutalist — but if the major studios come calling, he’s not answering.
“ I’ll probably only make seven to 12 films, if I’m really lucky,” the 36-year-old director tells me on today’s episode of the Prestige Junkie podcast. “That’s just because of how I make them. They’re radical films, and they’re very uncompromising movies. I have no intention of directing a franchise after this. I will continue making my own films, forever and in perpetuity.”
The Brutalist famously took seven arduous years to make, on a budget of just $10 million, but it’s hard to argue with Corbet’s commitment to that model. His film premiered to raves at the Venice Film Festival last August and was swiftly acquired for North American distribution by A24, which has shepherded an awards campaign that earned 10 Oscar nominations. (The Brutalist has so far scored $12.6 million at the global box office.)
Corbet and his partner of 13 years, Mona Fastvold, co-wrote The Brutalist, and just ahead of its Venice premiere they were in production on her next film as a director, Ann Lee, a musical about the Shaker religious sect that developed in New York in the 18th century. He swore to their 10-year-old daughter — whom you might remember watching her dad in awe as he accepted his Golden Globe — that after Venice they would all be able to take a break. Now the exact opposite has happened.
In our wide-ranging conversation Corbet, who previously spoke with me about The Brutalist in December, admits he still feels a little uncomfortable being the face of his film. The Arizona-born filmmaker and former actor, now based in New York, even muses about how he might be able to step back on future projects — unless he goes full Terence Malick and never gives another interview again. We talk about the future of AI in filmmaking, which generated a bit of controversy around The Brutalist a few weeks ago, and what he’ll do the day after the Oscars, when he can finally take that promised time off.
This special Saturday episode also includes a conversation between myself and The Ringer’s Joanna Robinson about an encouraging trend among this year’s best picture nominees, and a look back at when the Oscars have gotten it really, really right with popular movies — and which opportunities they still missed.
