‘The Brutalist’ Star Felicity Jones on the ‘Element of Defiance’ in Her Golden Globe-Nominated Performance and Being Open to a ‘Star Wars’ Return: ‘There’s Unfinished Business’
“There’s a real honesty and integrity to it all,” says Felicity Jones, looking out across a sea of concrete. “You can really see the correspondence between the psyche coming out of the Second World War and the architecture.”
The British actress is taking in the view at the Barbican, perhaps London’s most famous Brutalist construction and a labyrinthine maze of monolithic blocks and walkways connecting residential units, public spaces and one of the capital’s best-known cultural hubs. It’s a delightfully contrived location to discuss her latest film, “The Brutalist,” and one she thoroughly approves of. “This is such a good idea,” she says. “And perfect conditions!” (A bright blue sky offers a picturesque backdrop for all the towering gray.)
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Brady Corbet’s electrifying drama about a Holocaust survivor and Brutalist architect in post-war America — which A24 releases on Dec. 20 — has been captivating critics since it bowed in Venice. Jones may not appear until after the 215-minute film’s unorthodox halfway point, but her performance has thrust the 41-year-old into the awards conversation, alongside co-stars Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce. A Golden Globes nomination has already been earned.
Jones says Corbet and his writing partner Mona Fastvold approached her about playing Erzsébet Tóth, the wheelchair-using force-of-nature wife of Brody’s László Tóth, two years before production started in 2023 in Budapest (standing in for Philadelphia).
“I couldn’t put the script down,” she says. “I just loved the intelligence and thought the ideology of the film was intriguing, this idea of fleeing fascism and falling straight into the arms of capitalism.”
Ironically, the geometric slabs she’s stopped at to admire are a cluster of the Barbican’s residences, built to be rented out by the council but now privately owned and notoriously expensive. Like the Tóths, she notes, they too have fallen into the arms of capitalism. “But they’re such a special, unique place to live.”
A decade separates “The Brutalist” from Jones’ breakout film “The Theory of Everything.”
“Ten years exactly — it’s so strange,” she says. Jones’ portrayal of Stephen Hawking’s wife Jane in the love story-meets-biopic put her on Hollywood’s radar, leading to an Oscar nomination and studio roles.
But more than just critical acclaim and an agreeably round number links the two features.
Both see Jones playing supporting spouses to troubled geniuses. Yet both “go beyond the labels of simply being wife or mother,” she says. “Like many of the parts I’m drawn to, they have an element of defiance.”
In “Theory,” Jane Hawking was a young woman in the early throes of her life and career, much like Jones at the time. For “The Brutalist,” she needed the experiences she’s amassed since to play a brilliant woman whose life has been swept up in history’s tide. “Having had my own family has given me the resources and the power to do this role,” she says. (Jones has two children, ages 2 and 4, with her director husband Charles Guard — she’s “in the swamp” in terms of parenting, she says.)
Among the leading roles that came in quick-fire fashion after “Theory” was the (also) defiant Jyn Erso in 2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” Following in the rebellious footsteps of her co-star Diego Luna (whose prequel series “Andor” she hasn’t yet managed to watch — blame the kids), it’s a universe she’d happily return to. “There’s unfinished business there,” she says, now parked on a bench after a few too many false turns and dead ends (stories have been written about getting lost in The Barbican). “I think in the right circumstance if you put Jyn in the right story, then why not?”
Far more concrete are the projects Jones has coming up, including “Train Dreams” from “Sing Sing” co-writer and “Jockey” director Clint Bentley, in which she’ll star alongside Joel Edgerton (originally set to play Brody’s role in “The Brutalist,” coincidentally), and Michael Showalter’s Christmas comedy “Oh. What. Fun.” Her production company Piecrust is on board a graphic-novel adaptation, “100 Nights of Hero,” and is developing a TV series in which she’ll play the head of a family-owned Formula One team.
But right now, Jones is embracing the growing appreciation for a film she’s extremely passionate about.
“There’s an appetite for an event, and it feels like with ‘The Brutalist,’ that’s what it is,” she says. “It’s an American epic — for everyone. And very much a piece of pure cinema.”
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