Adrien Brody Just Broke a Shady World Record With His Oscars Win
Winning an Oscar is the kind of once-in-a-lifetime achievement that feels important to celebrate, even if you aren’t actually winning it for the first time. That’s what happened with Adrien Brody at the 97th Annual Academy Awards. Brody won the Best Actor in a Leading Role award for his performance in The Brutalist.
In the movie, Brody plays László Tóth, a Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp who immigrates to the United States after the war and struggles to achieve the so-called American Dream. Brody had been the favorite to win the Oscar at the start of the Awards season but had lost some steam after reports that The Brutalist had used AI to perfect his Hungarian pronunciation.
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Over twenty years ago, the actor won another Oscar in the same category for his portrayal of Władysław Szpilman, a famous Polish Jewish pianist and Holocaust survivor, in Roman Polanski’s The Pianist. When he won his first Oscar, Brody surprised presenter Halle Berry with a kiss in a moment that became infamous. This time, however, he left an impression on everyone in the audience for a very different reason—he just wouldn’t stop talking.
But how long was Adrien Brody’s Oscars speech? And what did he say during it? We break it down.
How long was Adrien Brody’s Oscars speech?
Perhaps Brody felt that after starring in a three-and-a-half-hour movie in The Brutalist, he needed to make his speech longer than usual, because his Oscars Speech went on for 5 minutes and 37 seconds, breaking a record for the longest acceptance speech in the history of the Academy Awards. According to Guinness World Records, Greer Garson, who spoke for 5 minutes and 30 seconds after winning best actress in 1943, held the record before Brody.
Oscar speeches are supposed to be 45 seconds long, not that anyone follows that rule, particularly for the acting categories. Best Supporting Actor winner Kieran Culkin and Best Supporting Actress winner Zoe Saldaña spoke for about two minutes and 30 seconds each and Best Lead Actress winner Mikey Madison spoke for a little under two minutes.
Brody, however, went twice as long, even though he started his speech remarking that “they’re already counting me down,” meaning he was aware of the time. “No matter where you are in your career, no matter what you’ve accomplished, it can all go away,” Brody went on to say, a reminder of a theme he’s brought up before this Awards season. “And I think what makes this night most special is the awareness of that and the gratitude that I have to still do the work that I love.”
Of course, about four minutes in, when they tried to play him off, Brody pushed back. “Please turn the music off,” he said. “I’ve done this before. Thank you. It’s not my first rodeo.”
In his opening monologue, Oscars host Conan O’Brien joked that if any acceptance speech went too long, the show would “cut to John Lithgow in the audience looking not angry, but slightly disappointed.” Sadly, that didn’t happen. And ironically, if there was anyone we would have expected to go long, it was Adrien Brody. Kieran Culkin even previously mocked him for his long speeches at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, reminding him that 45 seconds “is the allotted time, Adrien Brody.”
“There was no reason to take that shot,” Culkin added. “I love you. It’s a joke. You take your time.”
Seems like Brody took the last part to heart.
