Making Oscars history
For only the third time in history, two Jewish actors have been awarded the Oscar for best actor and actress in a leading role.
For just the third time in Academy Awards history, two Jewish actors have been awarded the Oscar for best actor and actress in a leading role – Adrien Brody for his portrayal of Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor and architect László Tóth in The Brutalist and Mikey Madison for her role as Anora Mikheeva in Anora.
The first time two Jewish actors won the leading role categories was in 1937 with Paul Muni for The Story of Louis Pasteur and Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld. Fifty years later, Paul Newman won for The Colour of Money and Marlee Matlin for Children of a Lesser God.
It is the second Academy Award for Brody, who won in 2002 for his role in The Pianist as composer and Holocaust survivor Władysław Szpilman.
In a roundtable interview with The AJN about The Brutalist, Brody said it was meaningful for him to share a story about the postwar period when “there was a tremendous amount of Jewish immigration and creative people coming to America – or elsewhere – to flee persecution, but also to have a life where their contributions are valued”.
“These are all very relevant human struggles that so many people are enduring in some capacity, whether it’s them personally or a family member. But they’re all very relatable, whether it’s an ancestral struggle, whether it’s racism or antisemitism, or being othered. It is relatable to, unfortunately, too many people in this contemporary world,” he said.
While this year’s Academy Awards ceremony was not without its controversies, including Australian actor Guy Pearce wearing a Free Palestine pin despite being nominated for his role in a film about a Holocaust survivor (The Brutalist), and contentious documentary No Other Land winning best documentary, Brody used his acceptance speech to draw attention to the hatred around the world.
“I’m here once again to represent the lingering traumas and repercussions of war … of antisemitism, and racism and othering,” he said. “I believe if the past can teach us anything it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.”
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