Felicity Jones on ‘The Brutalist’ and Unfinished ‘Star Wars’ 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.)

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…