Authenticity always matters when talking about actual historical events. Brady Corbet’s Oscar-winning epic period drama The Brutalist, starring Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, is an example of perfect work, from its historical accuracy to linguistic precision.
To perfect the Hungarian speech in the film, Corbet, an American filmmaker, turned to Respeecher voice AI to ensure the language was not just good but flawless.
The Brutalist movie tells the story of a Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor and Bauhaus-trained architect, László Tóth. In the film, Tóth and his wife flee post-war Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of the modern United States.
Corbet's vision was strong: he was genuinely dedicated to historical and artistic fidelity. His dedication to it was evident in every aspect of the production, including using the VistaVision process to capture the spirit of the 1950s. VistaVision film format was created by engineers at Paramount Pictures in 1954 and had been a testing ground for cinematography ideas for many years.
While working on the movie, Brady Corbet remembered that too often, films featuring foreign dialogue resort to gibberish or inauthentic accents. He refused to take that shortcut, as true immersion always requires linguistic accuracy. The director used Respeecher AI voice technology to refine the Hungarian dialogue, ensuring every word resonated naturally.
"Representing the nation of Hungary was incredibly important for us. I wanted Hungarian viewers to be able to watch the film and the Hungarian dialogue to be completely accurate. It is one of the most difficult languages in the world",
Mr. Corbet said in a recent interview.
The task set for the team was rather challenging: AI speech enhancement for Hungarian pronunciation that preserves the actors' original speech and emotions. Respeecher's role was not to replace their performance but to refine it, using AI-assisted speech improvement to elevate the natural talent of the cast.
Both Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones received extensive dialect coaching, so their accent was already on point. However, some minor refinements were necessary to ensure a native-level speech.
"Hungarian is one of the most challenging languages for non-native speakers to master. Our job was to subtly enhance the pronunciation while maintaining the authenticity of the actors’ voices and thus honoring the creative vision. Every vowel and consonant we adjusted had to sound completely natural.
We were honored to work on this remarkable project with Mr. Corbet and the sound team. Their dedication to authenticity inspired us to fine-tune every detail,"
says Respeecher’s Head of Delivery Natalia Statyvka.
Bringing this vision to life required close collaboration between Respeecher's experienced sound professionals and The Brutalist production team. This was not a simple "press a button" operation but an iterative process involving brainstorming, expert consultations, and continuous refinement of AI voice correction.
Sound specialists analyzed recordings in fine detail. Their task was to make precise modifications and maintain the integrity of the performances. Meanwhile, the constant feedback loop between Respeecher and the film sound engineering team ensured that every adjustment, including AI for post-production, aligned with the director's vision. In such a great story, every sound matters.
As Dmytro Vasylets, synthetic speech artist at Respeecher's team, explained:
"The most challenging thing in this project was maintaining the organic flow of the actors' speech while ensuring the pronunciation was indistinguishable from the speech of a native Hungarian speaker. Hungarian is a difficult language - but it’s also unique, beautiful and has almost fairy-tale-like features.
It required a careful balance of human expertise and technology. We had a Hungarian advisor, who helped us pinpoint specific areas for improvement. At times, we needed to remake a word a few times to achieve the perfect sound.
We experimented with new technologies and got a push to further develop them to better convey emotions through the medium of sound.
We wanted the voices we made to resonate with the viewer and tell the stories that touch hearts, so, naturally, we were dedicated to doing our best."
The accolades speak for themselves. During the Oscar 2025 night, the movie got three Academy awards, including Best Actor for Adrien Brody.
Before the Oscar triumph, the film secured other significant wins, such as BAFTA's Best Director and Best Actor and the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture and Best Director, among dozens of other prestigious awards. Overall, The Brutalist received over 160 award nominations, including 10 Oscar nominations.
Director Brady Corbet himself praised the collaboration:
"The process was creatively fulfilling and wholly successful as a result of months of hard work and transparent communication between our performers, our mixers, and Respeecher’s excellent team of engineers— all the feedback from myself, our Hungarian team, and our sound department was taken into account, but more importantly the results exceeded our expectations—Respeecher helped us to perfect even the most nuanced elements of the Hungarian language; known to be one of the world's most difficult languages if one is not originally a native speaker.
"When a simple miscommunication occurred during an interview with a member of my Post-production team, it sewed confusion and roused controversy, Respeecher, however, continued to be excellent partners to us—and together, we linked arms to shed light on the ethical nature of their technology and to the extent we all went to preserve our lead actors' performances when speaking another language… What Respeecher is doing will open up possibilities for performers to play characters from anywhere in the world whilst also honoring the nations those characters are from.”
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