Adrien Brody on "The Brutalist"

Last month, on a boat called the Manhattan, Adrien Brody and I sailed into New York Harbor.  Destination: The Statue of Liberty.He'd been to the landmark before, spending time there with his mother, an immigrant who came to America in 1958."My mother and my grandparents fled Hungary during the revolution," Brody said.

"There was so much unknown, and a lot of loss.And all of those sacrifices have kind of laid the foundation for my own existence and what has been accessible to me." Brody's immigrant roots make his latest film, "The Brutalist," a deeply personal one.

It's a sweeping, decades-long tale of love, ambition, and a complicated American Dream, all centered around one man, László Toth."He's a Jewish Hungarian architect who survives the horrors of World War II, and is forced to toil through poverty and rebuild," Brody said.Toth is hired by a wealthy industrialist to build a massive community center in his "brutalist" style – a form of architecture that's light on decoration and heavy on concrete.

 To get Toth just right, Brody drew on his memories of his Hungarian grandfather."I remember my grandfather's accent was very, very heavy," he said.

"So, do you hear your grandfather's voice a little bit in this character of László?" I asked."Oh definitely, yeah, I conjure it up.

I also knew every bad word in Hungarian as a kid.So, I infused some of that in it that's not in the script!"To watch a trailer for "The Brutalist" click on the video player below: The film's received seven Golden Globe nominations, and Oscar buzz is high.

But at three-and-a-half hours, it requires a commitment.Asked if he was worried about the film's length, Broday replied, "This is an event.

Generations before us, you could expect to see something like this in a theater.But that's becoming much more rare today.

I think we all need to be fed nourishing meals! And this is one of them."At 51, Brody's portrayal of a man rebuilding his life after a war ...