Alessandro Nivola on The Brutalist, the Oscars, and Seeing His Son in The White Lotus

The last time that Alessandro Nivola found himself in the room at the Chateau Marmont that he’s hanging out in before the Oscars tonight, he was throwing a rager.

“I filmed a movie many years ago called Laurel Canyon, with Francis McDormand and Christian Bale,” he tells me over the phone, just a few hours before hitting the red carpet. “I think it would have been about 2003. I was playing some rock singer in it, and we filmed a scene where there was my album release party, and there was this whole crowd of people in here along with the cameras. We staged a real party—we had a rager and filmed it, it’s in the movie. And I walked in today, and it turned out this was the same room.”

Today’s activities, he confirms to me, will not be quite as unbridled—but there’s still cause to celebrate. The fifty-two-year-old actor is heading to the Oscars this evening in support of The Brutalist, in which he plays Attila, the cousin of Adrien Brody’s László Tóth. The movie has received ten nominations, including one for Best Picture.

“We definitely need to celebrate in as committed a way as we possibly can, given that this movie’s had a such a long road to this moment for me,” he says. “Although most of the rest of the cast changed several times over the years as the movie was being put together, I have been attached to doing it since the very first week of Covid lockdown.”

“The tailor at Zegna in New York—I wish I knew his name so I could tell you—but I think he was the most expert tailor I’ve ever encountered,” says Nivola. “All designers love to tout the kind of attention to detail and the craftsmanship and care that goes into the making of their clothes, but this was really seeing that in action.”

Even though the past half-decade of Nivola’s life has been spent in attachment to The Brutalist, he’s not feeling too bittersweet about it. Instead, he’s cheerful and relaxed on the phone, quick to laugh and even quicker to crack a joke. If you aren’t sure where you can place Nivola from, check your AMC watch history; The Brutalist is one of three box office releases he had this winter, alongside Kraven the Hunter and The Room Next Door.

Tonight’s Oscars are the pièce de résistance of the press cycle and awards season, and to the ceremony, Nivola is wearing a made-to-measure Zegna tuxedo styled by Michael Fisher, made from black mohair wool. It’s a sharp, classic, Old Hollywood kind of look—a single-breasted jacket with a sleek peak lapel, an ivory silk dress shirt, and matching black pants with a side band in black ottoman, the same fabric as the lapels. His look, along with Zegna’s short film created to go with it, tells a tale of legacy—an overarching theme of The Brutalist, and of Nivola’s own family history, which echoes the story woven through the film.

Our talk covers that, of course, but also the Hollywood icons he looks up to, how he feels about The Brutalist‘s reception, and whether ornot he’ll be able to duck out of an afterparty to catch his son, Sam, in tonight’s episode of The White Lotus.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

“Throughout my career I’ve just wanted as much variety as possible,” he says. “And every time I take a new role, I’m always looking for it to be something that I’ve never done before and that I can push myself in some way that I haven’t before.”

On the Reception of The Brutalist

“Brady Corbet, the director of The Brutalist, thought we were going to be shooting it three weeks from the time I signed on, and of course it was three years later that we shot it. And so, what is that, five? It’s now been five years in the making for me, and for him it was even longer. It’s definitely been a long road for it to even come out.

“But then it ended up getting all this attention, which I just never imagined it would. I mean, movies are so funny that way. You just cannot ever guess how it’s gonna play out. I never had any doubt about the, quote, ‘quality’ of the film and its ambition, but the idea that a three and a half hour movie with an intermission about an architect was going to be the talk of the town was, of all the movies I’ve made, probably not the one I would have predicted. It feels celebratory and I don’t really feel any pressure about it. And the movie has already so far exceeded my expectations in terms of how appreciated it’s been and how widely it’s been seen. So this whole part of it is just fun and amazing.”

On His Custom Zegna Look for the Oscars

“It’s classic, but it was made for me. The tailor at Zegna in New York—I wish I knew his name so I could tell you—but I think he was the most expert tailor I’ve ever encountered. He put a mock-up jacket on me that was vaguely in the same style of what the black tie jacket was going to be, and he walked around me, didn’t touch the jacket. And there was a guy with a clipboard next to him, and he just started whispering numbers, like ‘0.75’ and ‘0.25.’ And that was referring to how much to pull in the shoulder, how much to drop the seat, where the hems were, all the minute details of the tailoring. And he never had to touch me, never had to measure anything. He just knew it from looking at it. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, it was just like expertise of a kind that I haven’t ever encountered. So needless to say, it fits me perfectly. All designers love to tout the kind of attention to detail and the craftsmanship and care that goes into the making of their clothes, but this was really seeing that in action.”

“My first conversation with Brady was all about my family history, because my grandfather was a Sardinian sculptor, but met my grandmother, who was a German-Jewish artist, at art school in Milan when they were young.”

On the Releases of Kraven the Hunter, The Room Next Door, and The Brutalist This Winter

“One of them was shot three years ago, one two years ago, and one had been shot just a few months before we premiered at Venice. That was The Room Next Door. But in fact, Kraven the Hunter, I did have to shoot a year after we filmed the movie. I had to do some reshoots in London, and it coincided with the shoot of The Brutalist. So I was flying back and forth between Budapest and London, and in The Brutalist, I have this kind of faint Hungarian-accented English as Attila. And in Kraven the Hunter, I’m Russian. So my brain was scrambling between these two voices.

“But throughout my career I’ve just wanted as much variety as possible. And every time I take a new role, I’m always looking for it to be something that I’ve never done before and that allows me to push myself in some way that I haven’t before. And so having all three of those happen to coincide with their release was just a surprise, but it allowed people to see all three of these different characters kind of side by side, if they were interested in a triple-feature afternoon. It might take a whole day just for The Brutalist, but if they’ve got an iron constitution, they would have the opportunity to do that.”

“I have always fashioned myself on the group of actors that came up in the 1970s, who were movie stars but were not built in the mold of the Cary Grants from the era before. They were really character actors who had found stories that were about unlikely heroes. Those are the roles that I’ve always looked for.”

On His Family History Echoing The Brutalist

“My first conversation with Brady was all about my family history, because my grandfather was a Sardinian sculptor, but met my grandmother, who was a German-Jewish artist, at art school in Milan when they were young. And it was just before the Second World War, and they had to get the hell out of Italy at that time, because they were being informed on to the police. They ended up coming to New York, and in a very similar way to the characters in The Brutalist, they had been bohemian artists and part of a whole artist-intellectual crowd in Europe at that time. And coming to New York, they just left everything behind. They had no money. They were working as janitors and nannies and stuff. When they were starting out, my grandfather was painting hand-painted Christmas cards and selling them on the street, and then he ended up becoming a celebrated sculptor and working closely with all of these architects. And one of them who he collaborated with many times and who became one of his very best friends was Le Corbusier, who is widely considered to be the father of brutalism.

“I had grown up in a house in Long Island where they lived, and I was there all summer every year. And there are these two huge walls in the middle of the house that are painted by Le Corbusier, these huge murals. And I didn’t understand the significance of it at all when I was a kid, but of course, as I grew up, I came to understand who he was and how important he was to mid-century architecture. So when Brady called me up and I’d read this script, there was just so much to talk about.”

“You bet I have been watching my son in The White Lotus. From the looks of it, I may have to start watching some of it through my fingers.”

On His Icons

“I have always fashioned myself on the group of actors that came up in the 1970s, who were movie stars but were not built in the mold of the Cary Grants from the era before. They were really character actors who had found stories that were about unlikely heroes. Those are the roles that I’ve always looked for. And Gene Hackman was really one of the greats, him and Robert Duvall, and obviously De Niro and Pacino and those guys. They were all actors who were interested in character, and they changed so much from role to role. Hackman was one of my great heroes, and I was so sorry to hear of his passing.”

On Watching His Son, Sam, As Lochlan Ratliff In The White Lotus Season 3

“You bet I have been watching Season 3. From the looks of it, I may have to start watching some of it through my fingers. But I mean, it’s just amazing watching him. He’s done so well. I think he’s so good in it, and there’s something about his character that is so gentle and mysterious and really draws you in. I can tell that it’s headed in a direction that’s going to get a little hectic soon, so I’m bracing myself for the coming episode tonight. You know, Carrie Coon was texting me and wishing me luck for the Oscars, and I was saying I might have to slip out of the Vanity Fair party tonight to catch episode three before rejoining the fray. But, yeah, he’s kind of being shot out of a cannon now, and I’m so happy for him.”

“Movies are so funny that way,” he says. “You just cannot ever guess how it’s gonna play out. I never had any doubt about the, quote, ’quality’ of The Brutalist and its ambition, but the idea that a three and a half hour movie with an intermission about an architect was going to be the talk of the town was, of all the movies I’ve made, probably not the one I would have predicted.”

On What Comes After the Oscars

“I think the plan is to end up at our friend’s house. One of the actors in The Brutalist lives up at the top of Beechwood Canyon—I mean, you could almost reach out and touch the Hollywood sign. And that’s where we’re going to congregate at the end of the night, and it’s just going to be cozy.”