A little too nose for comfort.
A makeup artist working on Adrien Brody’s new movie “The Brutalist” mistook the Oscar winner’s nose for a prosthetic.
Brody, 51, shared the hilarious anecdote on “The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon,” after the late-night host asked about the use of prosthetics in the film, which is nominated for nine Academy Awards —including Best Picture and Best Actor for Brody.
“They did apply a lot of — they had to do a prosthetic procedure,” he told Fallon of cosmetic alterations he underwent to portray fictional Hungarian-Jewish architect László Tóth, who emigrates to the US after surviving the Holocaust.
“It’s funny, everyone’s very busy, it’s a movie with a lot of moving pieces and so I had a new team of people who I had never met,” he continued on Monday. “They were removing this apparatus all over me and this woman was busily working away with a solvent on my nose.”
“She’s just working away, and I said, ‘Are you trying to remove that?’” he continued, gesturing to his nose.
“And she said, ‘Yes.’ And I said, ‘That doesn’t come off,’” he said, laughing.
“And then she says, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ And then she goes, ‘This is going in my diary.’”
Cracking up with Fallon, Brody added, “Why not? Now it’s going in my talk show repertoire, there you have it.”
Brody has long been known for his distinctive profile. In a recent interview with New York Magazine, the actor confirmed that his nose was accidentally broken during a fight scene in Spike Lee’s 1999 film “Summer of Sam,” leaving him with a permanent dent. He’s broken his nose on two other occasions, per a conversation he had with UK news outlet The Times in 2022.
“Even coming through customs in Spain recently with a cap on and mask up to [my eyes], the guy said, ‘Adrien Brody?’” he recounted to The Times. “I asked how he knew. He said, ‘Not the nose! The eyes.’”
Brody’s Best Actor nomination for “The Brutalist” is the second he’s received from The Academy over the course of his decades-long career.
His first nod landed him the Oscar for his portrayal of real-life Holocaust survivor Władysław Szpilman in Roman Polanski’s 2002 drama “The Pianist,” becoming the youngest actor ever to take him the prize.
“I was very young then and I’ve gained a lot of perspective through the years. I’ve had a wonderful career but there’s been plenty of peaks and valleys, and I think right now — I was very aware of how remarkable those circumstances were then,” Brody said of the win.
“I’m more aware now, and how special and rare this moment is, so I have a tremendous amount of appreciation. I’m so grateful for the recognition. It’s a remarkable thing and I’m so grateful for the work.”
