NEW YORK (AP) ā Over the years, has been good in most all things. But heās been particularly good at playing characters with a refined disposition who harbor darker impulses underneath.
That was true of his breakout performance in āL.A. Confidential" as a squeaky clean police detective whose ambitions outstrip his ethics. It was true of his dashing upper-class bachelor in āMildred Pierce.ā And itās most definitely true of his mid-Atlantic tycoon in
āIām really aware of how precarious we are as human beings,ā Pearce says. āGood people can do bad things and bad people can do good things. Moment to moment, weāre trying to just get through the day. Weāre trying to be good. And we can do good things for ourselves and other people, but pretty easily we can be tipped off course.ā
That sense of duality has served Pearceās characters well, especially his men of class who turn out to have less of it than they seem. His Harrison Lee Van Buren in āThe Brutalistā may be Pearceās most colossally two-faced concoction yet. If Brady Corbetās film, which was , is one of the best films of the year, itās Pearceās performance that gives the movie its disquieting shiver.
Pearceās Van Buren is a recognizable kind of villain: a well-bred aristocrat who, at first, is a benevolent benefactor to Adrien Brodyās architect LĆ”szlĆ³ TĆ³th. But what begins as a friendship ā TĆ³th, a Holocaust survivor is nearly destitute when they meet ā turns increasingly ugly, as Van Burenās patronage, warped by jealousy and privilege, turns into a creeping sense of ownership over TĆ³th. The psychodrama eventually boils over in a grim, climactic scene in which Van Buren pronounces TĆ³th ājust a lady of the night.ā
āWhat was great to discuss with Brady is that he is actually a man of taste,ā said Pearce in a recent interview. āHeās a man of class and a man of sophistication. Heās not just a bull in a China shop. Heās not just about greed, taking, taking, taking. Itās probably as much of a curse as anything that he can recognize beauty and he can recognize other peopleās artistry.ā
For his performance, the 57-year-old Pearce on Thursday landed his first Oscar nomination ā a long-in-coming and perhaps overdue honor for the character actor of āMemento,ā āThe Count of Monte Cristoā and āThe Kingās Speech.ā For the Australian-born Pearce, such recognitions are as awkward as they are rewarding. He long ago decided Hollywood stardom wasnāt for him.
āI get uncomfortable with that, to be honest,ā he says. āIām really happy with doing a good performance. I can genuinely say within myself Iāve done a good job. Equally, I know when Iāve done a (bad) job. But Iām also well aware of how a performance can appear good purely because of the tone of the film. I might have done exactly the same performance in another movie with not such a good director, and people might have gone, āThat was full-on but whatever.ā Whereas in this film, we are all better than we actually are because the film has integrity to it that elevates us all.ā
Like F. Murray Abrahamās Saleri in āAmadeus,ā Peaceās Van Buren has quickly ascended the ranks of great cinema villains to artists. The character likewise has some basis in reality, albeit extrapolated from a much different time and place. Corbet and Mona Fastvold, who are married and wrote āThe Brutalistā together, were fueled by their hardships with financiers on their previous film, 2018's āVox Lux.ā
āWe didnāt have a Van Buren but we certainly had our fill of complicated relationships with the people who hold the purse strings,ā says Fastvold. āThereās a sense of: I have ownership of the project because Iām paying for it, and I almost have ownership of you.ā
Pearce has been around the movie business long enough to shake hands with plenty of wealthy men putting money toward a film production. But he says none of his own experiences went into āThe Brutalist.ā
āThereās always this slew of producers at a higher level than us who come and visit the set,ā Pearce says. āIām polite and I go, āHi, nice to meet you. Thanks.ā But Iām a little caught up with what Iām doing. Then three years later youāll meet someone who says, āYou know, I was a producer on āL.A. Confidential.āā Ah, were you?ā
Pearce, who lives in the Netherlands with his partner, actor Carice van Houten, and their son, has generally kept much of Hollywood at arm's length. In conversation, he tends to be chipper and humble ā more interested in talking Aussie rules football than the Oscar race. āAny chance to have a kick, I'll have a kick,ā he says with smile.
That youthful spirit Pearce tends to apply to his acting as well. Pearce, who started performing in the mid-'80s on the long-running Australian soap opera āNeighbors," doesn't like to be precious about performing.
āIf Iām hanging on to it all day, itās exhausting,ā Pearce says. āThe thing that still exists for me is using our imagination, which is kind of a childlike venture. I think thereās something valuable about that even as adults. I think you can be all ages at all times.ā
Pearce compares receiving the script from Corbet to āThe Brutalist" to when approached him 25 years ago. Both times, he went back to watch the director's earlier films and quickly decided this was a opportunity to pounce at.
In digging into Van Buren, Pearce was guided less by real-life experience than the script. The hardest entry way to the character, he says, was the voice. āThankfully,ā Pearce says, āIām friends with Danny Huston and heās got a wonderfully old-fashioned voice.ā He and Corbet didn't speak much about the director's hardships on āVox Lux.ā
āI know that it was troubled. Brady is going to have trouble on every film he makes, I reckon, because he is such a visionary,ā says Pearce. āI know on this there were producers trying to get him to cut the time down. Of course, all those producers now are going, āI was with him all the way.āā
To a certain degree, Pearce says, he doesn't fully understand a performance while he's doing it. He's more likely to understand it fully afterward while watching. Take that ālady of the night scene.ā While filming, Pearce felt he was saying that line to put TĆ³th in his place. āBut when I watched it, I went: āIām just telling myself. Iām purely telling myself,āā he says. āThereās something even more distasteful about it.ā
It's ironic, in a way, that Van Buren, a man bent on control, is played so indelibly by an actor who seeks to impose so little of it, himself.
āThereās a performative element to Van Buren. He exhausts himself because heās trying to dominate, to be the one in charge, be Mr. Charming,ā Pearce says. āI donāt think he can ever enter a room without being self-conscious. Thatās an exhausting way to be, I reckon.ā
Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
