at one point in the movie, your character laszlo toth is asked why architecture?tecture? you're a painter. paint me about acting. why acting? >> adrien: i am plagiarizing this, but it beats working for a living. it didn't occur to me before you asked me the question. i am so grateful to have found acting and for acting to have found me. and i do owe that to my mother as well. she had an assignment to photograph an acting school when i was a boy and saw that i love people and study people and human individuality and i would always kind of tell stories and recreate things. and so she just saw that i had -- it would be a good fit for me and it also kept me from hanging out on the streets of queens. so look at me now. >> stephen: anybody else in your family? are you descended from actors? >> adrien: no, although my grandfather aspired to be an actor here. >> stephen: hungarian grandfather? >> adrien: my hungarian grandfather, yes, my mother's father. we are very similar in a lot of ways. he got a job as a tertiary role in a play on broadway, of "zorba the greek," is m

adrien brody plays a fictitious hungarian architect, laszlo toth, a jew who survives the holocaust ande in the usa, laterjoined by his wife erzsebet, played by felicityjones. he takes to backbreaking labour to survive until seemingly finding a benefactor in entrepreneur harrison lee van buren, played by guy pearce. you'll be given a place here on the property to live and work. i think that residing here will allow you the time and the space to conceive of it properly. the film's american director, brady corbet, has described it as a story about someone who flees fascism only to encounter capitalism. why was that such an idea, i suppose, that fascinated you? because the american myth is something that, you know, is not that frequently undressed, especially in this sort of coming—to—america fable that we have seen rehashed sort of again and again. adrien brody is the son of hungarian immigrants to the us and already has one oscar, for 2002's the pianist, where he played a polish musician hiding from the nazis. don't let them get you alive. he's now the frontrunner for another acting osca

' long tale of love and ambition and a complicated american dream, all centered around one man, laszlo toth draw something and then present it to you. >> he is a jewish hungarian architect who survives the horrors of world war ii and is forced to toil through poverty and rebuild. >> these are yours, yes? >> yes. >> tell me, why is an accomplished foreign architect shoveling coal here in philadelphia? >> reporter: he's hired by a wealthy industrialist to build a massive community center in his brutalist style, a form of architecture that is light on decoration and heavy on concrete. >> concrete, it's not very attractive. >> unfortunately, the building's aesthetic is not yours to resolve, mr. woodrow. >> reporter: to get toth just right, brody drew on his memories of his hungarian grandfather. >> i remember my grandfather's accent was very, very heavy. >> reporter: do you hear your grand father's voice a little bit in this character laszlo? >> definitely. i conjure it up. i also knew every bad word in hungarian as a kid. so i infused some of that in it that's not in the script. >> reporter: t

decades-long tale of love, ambition and a complicated american dream all centered around one man, laszlo tothrld war ii and is forced to toil through poverty and rebuild. >> these are yours, yes? >> yes. >> tell me, why is an accomplished foreign architect shoveling coal here in philadelphia? >> reporter: he is hired by a wealthy industrialist to build a massive community center his brutalist style, a form of architecture light on decoration and heavy on concrete. >> concrete. it's not very a attractive. >> unfortunately, the building's aesthetic is not yours to resolve. >> reporter: to get it right, he drew on his memories of his hungarian grandfather. >> my grandfather's action was very, very heavy. >> reporter: do you hear your grandfather's voice a little bit in this character? >> definitely. i conjure it up. i also knew every bad word in hungarian as a kid, so i infuse some of that in it, it's not in the script. >> reporter: the film received seven golden globe nominations and oscar buzz is high. but at three and a half hours, it requires a commitment. were you at all worried about the d