Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce receive Cinema Vanguard Award at Santa Barbara International Film Festival

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce took the stage Thursday night to talk about what many are calling their best performances to date.

“I’m an acting major. I’ve never seen a performance like that. It was amazing,” said UC Santa Barbara student Travers Tobis.

The Brutalist illuminates a visionary architect — played by Brody — who has escaped postwar Europe to embark on a new journey in America.

For Brody, who is the son of Hungarian immigrants, the film hits close to home.

“My mother and my grandparents fled Hungary in the fifties and emigrated. And so to be able to speak to their experience and their hardships and resilience is is quite meaningful. So it feels really good to me to honor them and to speak to this very universal longing for home and safety and — and freedom,” said Brody.

The movie tackles heavy themes like xenophobia and drug addiction, but at the heart of it – it’s a movie about the American dream or the lack thereof.

“It speaks to the complexity of the American dream. It speaks to the hope and yearnings and hardships that so many people endure emigrating to the United States, and how challenging it really is and the many hardships that most people have to endure to make a living and find a sense of home and — yeah— It shows the reality of things,” said Brody.

The movie grapples with the idea of home, power, and identity.

“It's one of the things that I really enjoy about about what I do as a job is being able to delve into the mindsets of of other characters. But I suppose as far as any advocacy work, I just try to follow my heart and, you know, be true to that as I can,” said Pearce.

The Brutalist is up for 10 Oscar nominations.