To say that Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist is monumental would be an understatement. As the film follows architect László Tóth’s decade-spanning journey from surviving the Holocaust to immigrating to America, the vast and expansive world of The Brutalist begins to change the moment Tóth meets wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren in the 1950s. Told throughout 1947 to 1980, The Brutalist follows László’s struggles in pursuing the American Dream at the cost of the construction of a community center commissioned by Van Buren. Offscreen Central had the opportunity to talk with production designer Judy Becker about the model construction of the Van Buren Center, how assimilation influences mid-century architect, and the dream collaboration process with Corbet.

Leia Mendoza: Hi Judy! It’s so nice to meet you. I want to start this by saying that The Brutalist is my favorite film of 2024, but it’s also now one of my favorite movies of all time. 
Judy Becker: Wow, that’s so nice to hear! 

Leia Mendoza: I saw it at Austin Film Festival and I made like 15 of my friends come with me because I was like “Guys, we have to experience this together,” because it’s truly unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. So, I just wanted to say congratulations on working on this film and winning Best Picture at the Golden Globes. I’m sure you guys are so excited. 

I grew up with a family that surrounded me around different eras of art and architecture. The brutalism in this film really brought me back to my childhood and being exposed and surrounded by it. The film starts off in 1947, and brutalism hadn’t emerged yet in America. We were kind of in a weird in-between period with art-deco. 
Judy Becker: Yeah! 

Leia Mendoza: You can kind of see it in the Van Buren’s house, where they’re incredibly wealthy and up-to-date with everything, but the house is very spacious. When you’re creating a design for a house like this that is so spacious, how do you make their estate feel lived in with minimal design? 
Judy Becker: I feel like most really wealthy people’s houses, even now, but at that time in particular, the lived in aspects would occur in the private quarters that the guests would never see. So, the public areas like the dining room and the lounges and even the library would feel pretty immaculate. But, there wouldn’t be much evidence of any detritus of private life. I’ve done that before in other films, like in Carol for example, in terms of signs of lived in, I think that’s really important to explain character. But, also something I’ve said before is that it’s important that in those eras even up to the 1980s, people didn’t have that much stuff. The material possessions that they had might be more carefully considered. Van Buren has a lot of artwork, for example. You don’t see much of it in the movie but we had filled his house with artwork that we created, and it was pretty good artwork!  We were inspired by a museum in Philadelphia called the Barnes Collection, where this guy Barnes had collected a huge amount of impression and post-impressionist art. He hung it in his house, like a salon wall, on top of each other on the walls everywhere. You would have to look up really high to see a Matisse. I went to it when it was hung like that, and it was amazing.

So, we did a lot of art like that. We concentrated on the art collection Van Buren has. Everything in his house would be nice and impressive, but it wouldn’t be cluttered. Cluttered would be in the Victorian age. That was a cluttered time period and everything after that became much more, I wouldn’t say minimal but thought out, designed and carefully planned. I did the original library with art-deco furniture because I wanted it to be something that Harrison Van Buren would’ve found very fashionable at the time of the 30s, when he decorated it but his son who has a mid-century modern office would think it is really outdated, and he wanted to redo it. All of his reasons that he gives László for wanting to redo the library aren’t maybe the real reason, maybe he just finds it dated and old fashioned. I liked the idea of making art-deco old fashioned rather than making a traditional men’s library old fashioned, so it was kind of something fun to play with. 

Leia Mendoza: I love that! I was reading the screenplay for the first time, and I loved how Brady [Corbet] and Mona [Fastvold] really left a lot of the Van Buren Center up to you. There’s small pieces of direction but it’s left to the imagination. I feel like subconsciously throughout the story, as much as the building is a love letter to Harrison’s mother, it also has bits and pieces of László and Erzsébet’s relationship during the war and how they’re separated from each other. How much of László’s past did you want to incorporate as motifs into the building? 
Judy Becker: I didn’t incorporate any of the Bauhaus, but I knew that he was a talented architect at Bauhaus. The fact that he was Jewish in Germany and was sent to a concentration camp, and then came to America where he was again seen as an immigrant and different in the community he’s in, I incorporated that a lot. Not in ways that are obvious to anyone viewing the movie or even seeing the building, even if the building had really been built. Definitely the concentration camp aspect would be obvious. If the building had really been built, anyone visiting the institute would have felt a sense of unease that they wouldn’t have known exactly why. It’s funny because I’ve never designed a building for a movie before that if it had been built, it would have worked in that way. It was designed as a cohesive whole, and if you built it, it would say what László would have wanted it to say. It’s a little difficult to explain, but we had to design the building and we made a whole model that was shot as the building. 

So, I really thought about every aspect of it. It basically imprisoned the visitor in a sense. It was very claustrophobic in many ways. That was part of the corporation of the feeling of the concentration camps that he and Erzsébet were in. But then, the exit from the building is very optimistic because you exit this broad staircase into the natural world and into light. So, it was both very dark and light. Since you read the script, you know the cross was scripted. But, the upside down cross wasn’t. I loved that it became part of it and sort of echoed the Statue Of Liberty in the beginning. It’s a twist on the optimism of America. But, the cross symbolism I incorporated a lot in the building. You don’t see it as a viewer very much, except for the two towers that have a cross cut-out in them. I wanted it to present the oppressiveness of the alienating environment László finds himself in when he’s in Doylestown, and also looking back in Germany. I did think a lot about László’s life and experience throughout the movie as I was designing things, because I was trying to channel him in every way at that moment. He arrives and he has nothing, and he’s probably pretty drained of everything at that moment. He arrives literally with nothing and having gone through an intense horrific experience. His creative power still exists somehow, but it’s probably not at its best. When he designs the furniture, he goes way back to his Bauhaus roots. I really took inspiration in the horrible American furniture we dressed the store with and you have to look really carefully because you’ll blink if you miss it, but the desk that he designs for the store window has the drawer taken from one of the desk tables on display in the store. The webbing on the chairs and also on the lounge that he builds for the library is inspired by some American beach chairs that were sent from the United States that you don’t see in the movie, but we had dressed them into some of the sets and the furniture store. So, I really tried to motivate everything by what László was experiencing at that time. It was a good way to approach it for me, because I have to think through the character and through what the movie is saying, and I can’t just design in some abstract fashion. It has to be related to the story and the character. 

Leia Mendoza: You touched on the furniture store, which I was really excited to talk about because I feel like the furniture store is such a pivotal place even though we only really see it at the beginning. It’s owned by László’s cousin, Attila and his wife. We see that his cousin has already assimilated into America and so a lot of the furniture is very mid-century. When László gets there, he’s very much out of place and he’s not entirely sure how he feels about it. When you were talking with Brady in the early conversations, did you guys ever discuss how the assimilation László feels like he has to go through is influenced in the way that he designs furniture with his cousin? 
Judy Becker: Well, his cousin’s furniture is kind of very middle-class, I think it’s called American Traditional or Colonial, and it was sold by a lot of mainstream chain stores. I forgot the name, but I think it’s Ethan Allen, and I think you can still buy it. My set decorator really wanted to use that furniture because it wasn’t scripted, and I really wanted it to say America. Like, it’s really American and totally American because it had to seem the opposite of anything European or anything designy. It was made in the mid-century, but it’s not what we think of when we think of the Danish mid-century or the Bauhaus. I wanted it to feel ugly and alien to László, and I think it worked really well. I did discuss it a lot with Brady, and I kind of had the idea of the name change. His last name is Mullnar and he becomes Miller because when I was designing the sign for the store, I kept having a lot of ideas of a crossed out sign. I wanted to do a sign underneath that said “Mullnar & Sons” and have “Miller & Sons” over it, but the signmaking was so time consuming that I ended up not doing it. But, during the course of that, I did talk to Brady about him changing his name. My mother’s family changed their name from Slutsky to Slone.  Sometimes I’m like, “I wish it was still Slutsky!” because that would be such an interesting name. 
Leia Mendoza: That’s a great last name, I love it! 
Judy Becker: And so, I told Brady that. I was like “Maybe it should be Slutsky and he changes it,” but that’s not a Hungarian name! So we talked about that, and it was great working with Brady because you could bring ideas and if he liked them, he would incorporate them if they worked with the flow of the movie. I think Attila’s character is really interesting because of how far he really goes with the assimilation. It’s very different from László, because László doesn’t. László doesn’t lose anything about who he is, and it’s understandable that Attila is closeted and has managed to avoid the worst consequences of being who he was in the place that he was. László didn’t, and László continues to be who he is. You can look at the movie on so many different levels and read so many things into it. 

Leia Mendoza: I was watching a video of the team at New York Film Festival, and you mentioned that you wanted to make a shirt that says “I Am László Tóth” for yourself and that you would give some to Adrien [Brody], Brady and Mona. I just want to put it on record that if you ever make those shirts, I will be the first person in line to buy one. 
Judy Becker: Yes, okay! I want to make one, but I haven’t had the time to think about it and source it but I’m writing it down that you want one. I think it could maybe take off. 
Leia Mendoza: I know! 
Judy Becker: I could sell them on Instagram, even though I’m not feeling too good on Instagram right now. 
Leia Mendoza: I was like, “I have to tell Judy that!”
Judy Becker: Yes, definitely! I’m writing it down. 

Leia Mendoza: Cinematography and production design truly go hand in hand in this film, so I also have to talk about working with Lol [Crawley]. Especially since this is such a grand film, you both are responsible for making 1950s Philadelphia. When you’re collaborating with a cinematographer to make sure that the architecture is shown to the fullest capacity, did you guys ever discuss how you would showcase everything? 
Judy Becker: We don’t discuss the individual framing of the shots very much. That happens on the day, like the compositions and how wide it is, that’s really up to what they’re planning and listing. When we scout locations, I scout first with a location manager and then scout with the director, and then when Lol joins us, we all scout together. Sometimes, it happens and it happens on this film where Brady and I love something that was a little difficult for Lol to light, which he had mentioned a couple of times. But we still did it, and I try to be cognizant of things that would make it hard for the DP, and I try to get to know every DP that I’m working with and know what their preferences are. Every DP is different and I’ve worked with a lot of great ones and it’s interesting. Lol is very flexible and he’s very easy to work with and he works a lot with practicals, which are the lights you see as set dressing. He used those to light the set, and that’s a modern lighting style and it’s very naturalistic. It’s easy for the production designer to work with and to get used to. I really enjoyed working with Lol and the collaboration was great. I wish that the DP started when I start, which most of the time they don’t, and sometimes that’s difficult. I find a location and I think it works, and the director loves it but it’s hard for the DP. So, you have to find a new one or the DP has to make it work, but there weren’t many issues on this one. It went really well. Sometimes Lol and I had to go scouting without Brady to look for something. That aspect of the shoot was pretty easy, easy is a relative word but it was enjoyable because everyone got along so well. It was a great group of people to this point where I don’t know if I ever want to work with anyone else again! It was great! 

Leia Mendoza: I know Brady said in the past that he chooses to work with people who are close friends and people they really admire. I feel like this film specifically has that, because everybody loved working with each other and it translates well throughout the film. 
Judy Becker: It was great. I was a newcomer who hadn’t worked with Brady before. I think it was me and the costume designer who hadn’t worked with anybody before. I had wanted to work with Brady for years, which I’ve told him a million times! I knew who he was as an actor and I hadn’t realized he had become a director until I saw The Childhood Of A Leader. I was bugging my agent literally for years, and I missed out on Vox Lux because he had already hired a designer. So, I didn’t want to do The Brutalist because it was about an architect, I did it because I really wanted to work with Brady for years. It was luck that it just so happened to be about my favorite style of architecture and about an architect and about a lot of things that I’m interested in. It was purely because I wanted to work with Brady. It was a really, really great experience. I never thought that the movie would be accepted in the mainstream the way it’s being accepted, and I’m so happy for everyone that it’s getting this kind of attention. 

Leia Mendoza: That was my last question, but I totally hope you get to work with Brady and Mona more. I think you guys are a dream team to work with. 
Judy Becker: Yeah, it was great. I miss it. I love every time I see them. 

Leia Mendoza: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I love this movie so much, it means the absolute world to me. I’m trying to see it for the second time soon because I think it’s one of those films that there’s not anything quite like it. 
Judy Becker: Yeah. 

Leia Mendoza: I feel like we’re not going to have another film like it for a really long time. 
Judy Becker: Not until Brady’s next film! 
Leia Mendoza: Yeah, not until Brady’s next one! I just want to say congratulations on the accolades you guys are so rightfully receiving. 

Judy Becker: Has it made you want to go back and watch some of the 70s epic films like 1900 and other things it’s being compared to? 
Leia Mendoza: Yes. I haven’t rewatched it yet, but I have a plan to watch other films that people have compared it to. 
Judy Becker: I think it’s related to Hollywood in the 70s, which is my favorite period of filmmaking, so it might be something that you’re interested in. 
Leia Mendoza: I will do my rewatch before I watch other films, so that way I can be like “Okay, I’ll make a list of everything!” 
Judy Becker: I don’t think Brady has mentioned any of those films. I think he’s more interested in the 1930s, Hitchcock and Tarkovsky, and more obscure films I haven’t ever seen. He’s a fascinating guy to work with. Really educated and really interesting. 

Leia Mendoza: Thank you so much, I love this film so much and once again, congratulations. 
Judy Becker: Thank you so much, it’s really nice to hear! 

The Brutalist is currently playing in theaters.
You can find our review of the film here.