The following story contains a spoiler for The Brutalist near the bottom of the Q+A portion.
GUY PEARCE HAS something he wants to show me—if only he can find it.
“Where is everything? It’s so weird how they’ve done this,” he says, flipping through the recently-revamped, increasingly-confusing photos app on his iPhone. He’s trying to find a photo from 1984, when, while living in Australia, he won the Junior State Bodybuilding Championship at the age of 16. “There it is!” he says with excitement as he flashes a photo on his phone towards me. He cut an impressive figure: his wide shoulders, muscular build, and narrow waist calling to mind Pumping Iron more than you’d expect of the typically lean Pearce. “I became extremely fascinated in bodybuilding, for the creative side of it. The fact that you could actually change the shape of your body was really interesting to me. And, so, I kept it up for years.”
Now 57, Pearce has maintained the devilish good looks and easygoing charisma he demonstrated his whole career, even if his hair is a bit more salt-and-pepper and his blue eyes are hidden behind a pair of sleek glasses. But his career is a testament to his attraction to change. After running the customary Australian soap opera gauntlet, he starred in the cult classic The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert before making his way to Hollywood to appear in 1999’s Oscar-winning L.A. Confidential. He had his big breakout role in Christopher Nolan’s Memento in 2000. Since then, he hasn’t been afraid to switch things up: prestige HBO dramas Mildred Pierce and Mare of Easttown (both starring his longtime friend Kate Winslet);the big bad in Iron Man 3; appearing under a ton of prosthetics as the villainous Peter Weyland in Ridley Scott‘s Alien prequels, 2012’s Prometheus and 2017’s Alien: Covenant.
Pearce only ever participated in that one bodybuilding competition (and began working as an actor only a couple years later, at age 18, anyway), but he always liked to stay fit and muscular. That is, until recently, when, as he says, his cardio “really, really, dropped off”—something that made his first scene in The Brutalist, his newest film and most acclaimed performance in years, particularly difficult.
In the film, Pearce plays Harrison Van Buren, a wealthy industrialist with a wide variety of resources and an even wider range of emotions. The movie itself is about the pursuit of the American Dream™, something everyone hustling knows all about; Van Buren is a guy who’s achieved that dream, and, hey, if you get on his right side, maybe he can help you do it too. But, of course, nothing is ever that simple. He doesn’t enter the 215-minute movie until around 40 minutes in, when he discovers that Adrien Brody’s titular character, a Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor named László Tóth, has been hired to oversee the renovation of a reading room in his house. Pearce enters with furious energy, yelling, ranting, raving, and jumping across the frame from his very first second on screen.
“After doing that 10 times, I was pretty exhausted,” he says with a laugh. “This is the reason why we need to stay fit as actors—so you can actually handle something like this. I’m 57 now, so it’s understandable that the motivation is trickier, but it’s more important to stay in shape now than ever, because otherwise it’s a slippery slope down.”
Pearce is a force in The Brutalist, going toe-to-toe with both Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones; it’s hard to look away from the unpredictable Van Buren. The UK-born, Australian-raised star is likely to be a major player as the film continues its march toward the Oscars, and justly so. As The Brutalist lands in theaters, Men’s Health talked to Pearce about how the movie depicts male relationships and power dynamics, and much more.
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MEN’S HEALTH: Let’s dive into The Brutalist. You grew up in the UK and Australia, and the theme of this film, ostensibly, is the pursuit of the American dream. As someone not from America, how did you connect to this story?
GP: It’s a good question. I myself, as you point out, grew up in Australia mainly. I was about three when we went to Australia, so my memory of England is pretty scarce. But back in about 1994, ’95, I started going to America to promote films and try to be in films, and I got a sense from the outside of this idea of Hollywood particularly, but L.A. and America as being the promised land, and quite quickly saw what opportunities it could bring. But I also saw the other side of it, where I would see homeless people on the streets. I started to think “Even though this is the promised land, it’s not panning out for everybody by any means.”
There are lots of people who fall through the cracks, and lots of people who essentially just get screwed by the system. Thinking about that experience of my own, and I didn’t go through any difficulty in trying to work in the States, but I witnessed other people, particularly with L.A. and Hollywood, where people from all over America come to make their dreams come true, and not many of them do, really. I could apply that to the film, because the film is about trying to escape something else and trying to live your dreams.
There were just lots of discussions with [co-writer and director Brady Corbet] along the way about what it’s like to be someone like the character I was playing, who is ostensibly successful, and doing what he’s always wanted to be doing. But we also get to see with a character like him that there are insecurities and there are weaknesses, and there are things that aren’t really who he wants to be. So, where he’s seemingly successful is potentially all a bit of an act—it’s a bit of presentation rather than reality. And as we say in the film, that starts to come undone.
MH: Your character’s image, how he looks, how he’s costumed, the voice that you chose, are all very compelling. The accent almost felt Transatlantic, like out of an Old Hollywood movie.
GP: It was similar to a voice I’d used in Mildred Pierce. And I know the actor Danny Huston, who actually has that accent. He really is, like, of another time, where [does his character’s voice] everything’s up here—it’s warm and engaging, and it’s almost condescending, but it’s loving at the same time. And there’s this sing-songy quality to it, which speaks to another time. It just felt normal for me to go to that place.
Obviously, the costumes and the look say a lot about who he is, and there’s a vanity there. There’s an absolute vanity in him. But that also goes along with the whole presentational thing: if you’re going to be successful, you’ve got to look good. If you’re going to be successful, you’ve got to speak well. You’ve got to listen to people. So, there’s all these different elements that he’s very aware of that make for a successful man, and he’s good at implementing those things.
MH: In a way, The Brutalist kind of revolves around some very complex male relationships, obviously with your character and Laszlo, but also you can tell even off-screen there’s something going on with Harrison Jr. (Joe Alwyn). What do you think the film has to say about those kinds of dynamics and relationships?
GP: It’s a lot of different things, but it’s all about power. It’s all about just trying to be in control. And I think Harrison Van Buren probably wants to be vulnerable, he wants to be able to be vulnerable, but he’s not really living in a world where he can be, and that’s looked upon as an endearing quality. Also, probably because in being vulnerable in the past, he’s probably been hurt by it. Laszlo has more confidence than Van Buren does, I think. Laszlo has more sense of self, and confidence in himself, than my character does. He recognizes in Laszlo that Laszlo is just going to say it how it is. There’s a safety net in that.
That becomes confronting for Van Buren. With his son, that’s a pretty fraught relationship as well. It’s difficult for the child of someone powerful, or the child of someone who is successful, to know how to be in the world, particularly with a man of that age who probably wasn’t affectionate, probably wasn’t particularly warm and cuddly, probably didn’t tell his son that he loved him or anything like that. Joe Alwyn’s character is trying to impress his father, and he’s also probably intimidated by his father. I probably want him to be a bit intimidated by me.
All of the relationships are on a bit of a knife’s edge. They’re all a bit fraught with troubled behavior that isn’t getting to be expressed. And then, on some level, Laszlo coming into his life just offers a different perspective on things. He’s a fascinating study. But again, I don’t think Van Buren knows how to respect a man like that. I think he’s enamored by him and he can see all his skills, et cetera, but as far as respecting him, he’s not so good at that.
MH: The second half of this movie plays out in a way that I wasn’t particularly expecting from the first half, but watching a second time, totally makes sense and links together. I’ve seen you play villains before in stuff like Iron Man 3—would you consider Harrison to be the villain of this story?
GP: I suppose, to some degree. I suppose he’s representative of capitalism, and what the pitfalls of the promised land and a promise. So, yes, you could say he is to a degree, but I wouldn’t necessarily want to just reduce him to that.
Obviously, the character in Iron Man 3, there’s more of a cartoon version of the world in the Marvel Universe, where you’ve got your clear baddie, you’ve got your clear heroine, and obviously something like this is far more complicated and complex. But, having said that, there are things I do in the film that are just absolutely reprehensible, so yes. But I think he’s representative of what the real toxin of the movie is, which is this idea of capitalism and this promise that you can have whatever you want.
MH: One of the most difficult scenes to watch in the movie is when Harrison assaults Laszlo in Italy. And my read on that was the subtext of the movie, which is basically this guy’s taking advantage of Laszlo’s creativity, his talent, when he doesn’t really have that himself. It’s turning the subtext into actual text at that point. But I think people are going to have a lot of different opinions about that point in the film, and I’m curious what your take on that scene is.
GP: I think it’s a couple of things. One, there’s no limits to how negative this behavior and this relationship can become. It’s pretty much the worst thing that you could do to someone. I mean, I don’t want to spoil it for the audience, and I don’t even want them to know that there is a spoiler in there, but it’s a form of abuse that completely reminds us that any sense of trust is questionable. And, obviously, it’s not just about the act that I inflict upon him, but it’s about how it affects him. Probably more importantly, it’s about how any trust he has in the system has completely smacked him in the face.
It was one thing I had to talk to Brady about a number of times in the months leading up, just to be sure I understood where it came from and what it meant. I think it’s about power more than anything; it’s about controlling. On some level, it’s the same way I think of a hunter in Africa or Asia, and seeing a great cat, a tiger or a lion, and feeling the need to shoot it and kill it. And then put your foot on it and take a photo, and go, “Look at me. I’ve tamed nature, I’ve taken possession of this. I can’t accept it in its natural form, so I need to control it.”
It’s a similar thing, it’s this sad indictment on our inability to accept what is, and to have to fuck it somehow. Whether we’re digging holes in mountains to pull marble out of the ground, or whether we’re killing someone, or abusing them. It speaks, I suppose, to the powerlessness of ourselves and what we need to do in order to feel powerful. Van Buren is someone who does feel powerless, and does all these things, and attains all these things, and controls all these things to feel like he actually has power and is powerful.
MH: I also got to see you recently in The Shrouds, which you did with David Cronenberg—another fascinating film.
GP: [Laughs] Interesting film, totally.
MH: What was it like to work with him, as one of the all-time greats, in comparison with a rising master like Brady?
GP: Well, quite different. I mean, both lovely, lovely guys. Mr. Cronenberg is really a delightful human being, and he’s got a childlike wonder about him. Anything gruesome and gory, he wants … I told him I had kidney stones, and he went, “Oh, I had kidney stones, and I took photos. I’ll send you the photos of my kidney stones!” I’m like, “Okay…” We had these really funny conversations
The tricky thing with Mr. Cronenberg is that he really needs the dialogue written on the page to be said exactly as it is. There’s no room for an ‘and’ or a ‘but’ to slightly change. So, that was a little harrowing. But they’re great scripts; you just learn your lines. But it was really a delightful experience; I’d been a fan since Scanners, so it was a real thrill.
