Award-winning director Brady Corbet reveals how he stays motivated to make movies — despite earning ‘less than minimum wage’

CANNES — When award-winning director Brady Corbet sets a goal for himself, he must complete it — even if it takes him nearly a decade to do so.

“It’s compulsion,” the “Brutalist” filmmaker admits in an exclusive sit-down with Page Six Wednesday inside of the Stagwell Sport Beach studio at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Corbet notes that he can’t really pinpoint his exact motivation, but credited his “extraordinary family,” including his wife, Mona Fastvold, and their 10-year-old daughter, Adelaide, for helping him keep going.

“At times, there isn’t really a light in the dark but, you know, it’s a compulsion to see things through. I have historically never started something that I didn’t finish,” he adds.

Money is certainly not a motivating factor, as the Oscar nominee, 36, previously admitted that he has yet to see a dime from “The Brutalist” — despite the film’s Academy Award wins and box office sales.

“If a film is incredibly successful, unless a deal is structured from the very beginning and they have very meaningful back-end participation, they don’t see anything in the form of a paycheck,” Corbet explains to Page Six.

“If you work on something for eight years, when you start doing the math … the reality is that you’re making less than minimum wage.”

When asked how he’s able to sustain a family with such low earnings, the “Vox Lux” director responds, “You hustle and you do a lot of gigs in-between.”

“My wife and I are very lucky that we both write screenplays for various studios and independent financiers but we’re never not working. We work seven days a week, 365 days a year and, of course, that’s not sustainable forever,” he concludes before joking, “Biologically, I’m hovering around 50.”

However, Corbet has also found another innovative way to take on lucrative projects by teaming up with Magna Studios, a film company that is revolutionizing how directors and talent partner with brands.

Magna Studios CEO Davud Karbassioun tells Page Six that advertisers are “trying to be supportive” because it’s “tough to make an independent movie.” He adds, “We have financing and so we can help talent develop.”

Karbassioun says that he and his team are “really interested in exploring working with brands that really want to embrace a more advertising mindset” by “investing in stories and IP and working with interesting filmmakers.” He says through those efforts they hope to create a “more meaningful” and “rewarding relationship with [the] audience.”

Magna Studios has already partnered with major brands like Apple, Nike, Google, Spotify and Amazon, and are working on a headline-making documentary about the iconic rock band Oasis.

Although Karbassioun is tight-lipped about the project, he teases that it’s “an amazing story” and adds, “I think it was the right time for them to do that and come back together.”

Corbet, for his part, says he is working on a documentary about a Chinese visual artist and is also developing another large format narrative film, which he suspects will also take him a “long time” to make.

He tells us, “Hopefully not as long as the last one [‘The Brutalist’] but also I’m very patient. It takes the time that it takes.”