Beloved actorBrendan Fraserhas won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the95th Academy Awards. Fraser, who has received all manner of critical acclaims for his leading performance in director Darren Aronofsky’sThe Whale, was up against the likes of Austin Butler as Elvis Presley inElvis, Colin Farrell as Pádraic Súilleabháin inThe Banshees of Inisherin, Paul Mescal as Calum Paterson inAftersun, and Bill Nighy as Mr. Rodney Williams inLiving.
Based on the 2012 play by Samuel D. Hunter,The Whalesees Brendan Fraser leading the latest outing from director Darren Aronofsky as Charlie, a 600-pound middle-aged man who tries to reconnect with his 17-year-old daughter. The two have grown apart after Charlie abandoned his family for his gay lover, who later died, which leads to Charlie binge-eating out of pain and guilt.
Adapted for the screen by Samuel D. Hunter,The Whalestars Hong Chau (The Menu,Watchmen), Samantha Morton (Her,Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,Minority Report), Ty Simpkins (Iron Man 3,Insidious: The Last Key), and Sathya Sridharan alongside Brendan Fraser, withStranger Thingsstar Sadie Sink starring as Ellie, Charlie’s daughter.
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The Whale Saved Brendan Fraser from the Wilderness
Brendan Fraser’s leading role inThe Whalecomes as part of what is now dubbed “The Brenaissance,” as the star of such fondly remembered classic asGeorge of the Jungle, Encino Man,andThe Mummysees a well-deserved career resurgence.The Whaledirector Darren Aronofsky recently revealed how it felt to pluck the actor “from the wilderness” and casting him in his award-winning role.
“No one was really thinking about him that much. It wasn’t really my calculation, it wasn’t like, ‘hey, I’m gonna go find an unexpected choice’. I had been struggling to find someone to play the role for a long time,” the filmmaker said,explaining that he did not intentionally go looking for an actor lost in “the wilderness,”but that finding Fraser was truly a “light bulb” moment. “And then when I saw him in this trailer for a low-budget, Brazilian movie, a light bulb went off. And I said, ‘Oh, well, we never actually thought of him.’ Through all of the different casting directors and all of the years of thinking, no one had stumbled on that idea.”
WhileThe Whalehas been polarizing among both critics and audiences alike (the movie currently sits at 65% on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes), with many criticizing the way in whichThe Whalepresents Charlieas well as the use of prosthetics and a “fat suit"to transform Fraser into a man struggling with morbid obesity, Fraser’s central performance has been met with standing ovations and thunderous applause.
Thus, Brendan Fraser has since been showered with awards,emerging victorious at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Critics' Choice Movie Awards, Satellite Awards, and winning the American Riviera Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
