The 2025 Best Actor race has put Sebastian Stan and Adrien Brody against each other time and again. However, though The Apprentice star wasn’t nominated at SAG Awards, he earned an even bigger shoutout at the event thanks to the evergreen Hollywood heroine Jane Fonda.
While accepting her Lifetime Achievement Award at the 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards on February 23, took aim at the Trump administration. With the Marvel standout heartthrob having portrayed a younger version of the 47th US president in the 2024 biopic The Apprentice, the actor earned praise in her eyes and her acceptance speech.
Jane Fonda’s shoutout to Sebastian Stan at the SAG Awards 2025
“While you may hate the behaviour of your character, you have to understand and empathise with the traumatized person you’re playing, right?” she said onstage. The lifelong actor and activist went on to add, “I’m thinking Sebastian Stan in ‘The Apprentice.’ Make no mistake, empathy is not weak, or woke. And by the way, woke just means that you give a damn about other people.”
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As the Winter Soldier icon’s name resounded through the room, the camera panned to Adrien Brody instead, as Stan remained absent.
Netizens speculate about Sebastian Stan-Adrien Brody’s alleged beef
Fans have noticed how this Sebastian Stan and Adrien Brody clash has developed into a running gag over the past few Hollywood award ceremonies. Like The Apprentice, Adrien Brody’s The Brutalist has been one of the major frontrunners at the awards season. However, with the film’s Oscar-nominated editor David Jancso admitting to the use of AI voice-generating technology to make the actor and his co-star Felicity Jones’ Hungarian accent more authentic, many turned their backs on the movie.
Sebastian Stan’s initial reaction to Adrien Brody was pulled out of context and out of proportion
Two months ago, Brody and Stan sat down for The Hollywood Reporter’s Roundtable, which also featured Colman Domingo, Daniel Craig, Paul Mescal and Peter Sarsgaard. Although the lot were all smiles and laughs for the most part of the joint interview, a certain moment was overblown by netizens.
Over 40 minutes down in the video, the focus shifts to Brody while the other A-listers, including Sebastian, focus hard on his words about his new learnings over a long career. However, the A Different Man actor’s expression is picked apart by many as him being “disgusted.”
It is worth noting that the December Roundtable conversation came out way before Jancso’s AI confession to Red Shark in January. The Pianist star wasn’t even considering the topic while answering the question posed to him. He was more focussed on personal and career obstacles.
Nonetheless, Stan’s facial expressions whenever Brody has been at the forefront recently have become a hot topic of conversation. Fans have continued to add to the compilation of his reactions to The Brutalist actor on X/Twitter, while speculating why the former has “beef” with the other.
The Brutalist director on using AI
Earlier this month, Brody finally broke his silence on the film’s AI controversy, i.e. the use of Innovative Respeecher technology during the post-production process.
At first, filmmaker Brady Corbet issued a statement to Deadline, clarifying their stance: “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own.”
He added, “They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. … The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.”
Adrien Brody on The Brutalist AI controversy
Then, Brody weighed in on the controversy while appearing on the ‘Little Gold Men’ podcast at Vanity Fair. “I understand that we live in a time where even just the mention of AI is a bit triggering. We live in a time where, unfortunately, things can get misappropriated quite easily on the internet,” he said. “and I just wish people had more understanding of the context and facts of the circumstances.”
He continued, “I’m happy that Brady managed to clarify a lot in his remarks. First of all, I’m the son of Hungarians and grew up with that language spoken in my home. I actually even integrated, within the Hungarian dialogue, curse words that weren’t in the script. … Obviously, his post-production process only touched some lines spoken in Hungarian. Nothing of the dialect was altered; that’s all done through a lot of hard work with our wonderful dialect coach, Tanera Marshall. We all worked incredibly hard on it, and we all know that.
“Brady is a very sensitive, thoughtful filmmaker. There was no technology implemented that takes work from people. It’s quite a typical post-production process. I think we all know the truth.”
Both Sebastian (The Apprentice) and Adrien (The Brutalist) are nominated at this year’s Oscars for Actor in a Leading Role. They were also nominated in the Best Actor – Drama category at this year’s Golden Globes. Brody won the tussle there, but Stan also ended up securing a big win in the Best Actor – Musical or Comedy category for his other movie, A Different Man. Although Timothee Chalamet took SAG’s Best Actor home on Sunday, The Brutalist star is leading the race after clinching wins at the Critics Choice and BAFTAs as well.
