The integration of artificial intelligence is set to become a contentious issue during movie awards season, as at least two prominent films have been discovered to utilize voice-cloning technology to enhance actor performances. In an interview with the tech magazine Red Shark News, editor Dávid Jancsó of The Brutalist explained that he aimed to craft Hungarian dialogue so flawless that “not even locals will spot the difference. ” To achieve this, he input the voices of lead actors Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, along with his own, into AI software. In the film, Brody portrays László Tóth, a Jewish-Hungarian architect who migrates to the US after World War II, while Jones plays his wife, Erzsébet. Jancsó, fluent in Hungarian, noted that although Brody’s mother was a Hungarian émigré, attempts at “coaching” and re-recording through ADR (automated dialogue replacement) with both the original actors and stand-ins proved ineffective. To resolve these issues, Jancsó turned to an AI solution developed by Respeecher, a Ukrainian firm that had previously worked on cloning James Earl Jones’s voice for the series Obi-Wan Kenobi. This technology was employed to enhance individual sounds and letters in the Hungarian dialogue of both Brody and Jones. “Most of their Hungarian dialogue incorporates parts of my speech. We were meticulous about preserving their performances; it primarily involved replacing a few letters …We had so much Hungarian dialogue that we needed to expedite the process; otherwise, we would still be in post. ” In light of the criticism, director Brady Corbet released a statement to various Hollywood outlets. “Adrien and Felicity's performances are entirely their own, ” he stated.

“They spent months working with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to master their accents. The innovative Respeecher technology was utilized exclusively for editing the Hungarian dialogue to fine-tune certain vowels and letters, with no alterations made to the English language dialogue. “This was a manual process carried out by our sound team and Respeecher during post-production, aimed at maintaining the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to modify or replace them. This was done with the highest regard for the craft. ” Additionally, it was revealed that AI cloning also enhanced Emilia Pérez’s character, Karla Sofía Gascón's singing voice in the trans gangster musical directed by Jacques Audiard. During a May interview at the Cannes Film Festival, re-recording mixer Cyril Holtz explained the necessity of expanding Gascón’s vocal range, stating that Respeecher was used to blend her singing with that of Camille, the French pop singer who co-wrote the film's score. In stark contrast, the horror film Heretic, featuring Hugh Grant, has adopted a firm anti-AI position, with its ending credits stating: “No generative AI was used in the making of this film. ” The recent strikes by actors and writers were partially fueled by concerns over the potential threat AI poses to significant segments of the film, television, and gaming industries. Settlements have included “guardrails” against the use of AI to generate scripts, while a strike by video game actors concerning voice replication remains ongoing. Filmmaker Paul Schrader shared on Facebook that he has also experimented with AI, utilizing ChatGPT to generate film ideas inspired by revered directors such as Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, Ingmar Bergman, and himself. Expressing his surprise, he remarked, “Every idea ChatGPT generated (in mere seconds) was good, original, and well-developed. Why should writers spend months searching for a good idea when AI can deliver one in seconds?” However, Schrader clarified to the Guardian that this was not an endorsement of AI, stating: “People mistakenly perceive AI as a technological advancement like the automobile, but it’s more akin to a virus driven by a hyperbolic curve. ”