Adrien Brody cried for the victims of the L.A. fires while accepting the best actor prize at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards Wednesday night at Tao Downtown in New York City.
“My heart goes out to all the families and the animals and our colleagues,” Brody said, who took home the award for his performance as László Tóth in director Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist.” “Most of the homes on the west side, the beach side of the [Pacific Coast Highway] are gone. From the Palisades on, this is our community. So I just want to thank and commend the bravery of the first responders, and their sacrifices and their meaningful work that deserves our recognition tonight.”
Although Brody had the most emotional response to the fires, host David Sims and Sean Baker, who took home the best screenplay award for “Anora,” also acknowledged their thoughts were with the people of Los Angeles.
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Corbet also shared some words of support for Los Angeles when accepting the award for best film, noting his New York home burned down several years before he shot his 2018 film “Vox Lux.”
Earlier in his acceptance speech, Brody took a moment to acknowledge his “Brutalist” costar Guy Pearce.
“I loved acting with you every day, and I assume many of you have seen the film, but for those of you who haven’t, Guy delivered such a complex and nuanced representation of Van Buren,” Brody said. “I don’t feel that I would be standing here tonight if he didn’t deliver such a magnificent performance.”
Starting Jan. 7, several raging fires broke out across the greater Los Angeles area following a severe wind storm, with the worst being in the Pacific Palisades and the Eaton Canyon. Just before 6 p.m. on Wednesday, another inferno started in the Hollywood Hills, causing Los Angeles mainstays like the TLC Chinese Theater and the Magic Castle to shut their doors.