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Movie News: Brendan Fraser transforms into recluse affected by obesity in The Whale first look UPDATE: TIFF Tribute Award!

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Brendan Fraser transforms into recluse affected by obesity in The Whale first look

Darren Aronofsky's directorial follow-up to Mother! will premiere at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.
By Jessica WangJuly 26, 2022 at 03:56 PM EDT

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The Brendan Fraser renaissance (dubbed the Brenaissance) has arrived.

On Tuesday, A24 released a first-look image of the actor in Darren Aronofsky's upcoming drama The Whale. The film is centered on Charlie (Fraser), a reclusive English teacher suffering from a compulsive eating disorder who attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter, Elle (Stranger Things breakout Sadie Sink).

The film is an adaptation of MacArthur-winning playwright Samuel D. Hunter's acclaimed 2012 play of the same name and will also star Hong Chau, Samantha Morton, and Ty Simpkins. Aronofsky's first directorial effort since 2017's Mother! starring Jennifer Lawrence, The Whale is set to premiere at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.


"Adapting my play into a screenplay has been a real labor of love for me," Hunter previously told Deadline. "This story is deeply personal, and I'm very thankful it will have the chance to reach a wider audience. I've been a fan of Darren's ever since I saw Requiem for a Dream when I was a college freshman writing my first plays, and I'm so grateful that he's bringing his singular talent and vision to this film."

"It's gonna be like something you haven't seen before," Fraser told Unilad last year of the film. "That's really all I can tell you. The wardrobe and costume was extensive, seamless, cumbersome. This is certainly far removed from anything I've ever done but not to be coy… I do know it's going to make a lasting impression."

Fraser was last seen on Doom Patrol as Cliff Steele (and Cliff's alter-ego Robotman). He also had a supporting role last year in Steven Soderbergh's No Sudden Move, but The Whale will mark the actor's first time back as a leading man since 2013's straight-to-DVD Breakout. And the Brenaissance is just beginning: he also has upcoming roles in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon and DC's Batgirl as bad guy Garfield Lynns/Firefly.

ew.com

Brendan Fraser transforms into recluse affected by obesity in 'The Whale' first look

See first look at Brendan Fraser in Darren Aronofsky's upcoming drama, 'The Whale.'
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Brendan Fraser's transformative 'Whale' performance wins major pre-Oscars award

Brendan Fraser has won the TIFF Tribute Actor Award for his transformation in 'The Whale,' landing a major pre-Oscars accolade for the actor.
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Brendan Fraser's transformative Whale performance wins major pre-Oscars award

Fraser's role in Darren Aronofsky's new movie has won the TIFF Tribute Award ahead of the Toronto-based film festival.

By Joey NolfiAugust 22, 2022 at 11:00 AM EDT






A major pre-Oscars accolade has beached itself on the shores of Brendan Fraser's career comeback.
The actor has won the Toronto International Film Festival's TIFF Tribute Award for his performance in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale, in which he plays a reclusive, compulsive over-eating English teacher who is attempting to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink).
A relatively new — yet no less influential — award on the awards season trail, TIFF Tribute prizes have gone to significant Oscar contenders in recent years. Since the prize's 2019 inception, eventual Oscar nominees and/or winners that have won TIFF Tribute prizes at the festival's annual gala include Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power of the Dog), Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye), Joaquin Phoenix (Joker), and Anthony Hopkins (The Father).


Brendan Fraser in 'The Whale'

| CREDIT: A24
"It's gonna be like something you haven't seen before," Fraser told Unilad of the film last year. "That's really all I can tell you. The wardrobe and costume was extensive, seamless, cumbersome. This is certainly far removed from anything I've ever done but not to be coy… I do know it's going to make a lasting impression."
In addition to Fraser, director Sam Mendes and the ensemble cast of My Policeman — including Harry Styles, Emma Corrin, Rupert Everett, and more — will also receive awards at the TIFF Tribute gala on Sunday, Sept. 11.
The Whale — also starring Hong Chau, Samantha Morton, and Ty Simpkins — makes its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in early September, followed by a screening at TIFF and a yet-to-be-announced public release date later this year. TIFF runs from Sept. 8-18.
 
ew.com

Brendan Fraser receives standing ovation at 'The Whale' premiere at Venice Film Festival

Brendan Fraser forced to stay, take a bow due to overwhelming standing ovation for 'The Whale' at the Venice Film Festival.
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Brendan Fraser receives standing ovation at 'The Whale' premiere at Venice Film Festival

At the Venice Film Festival, the actor's performance in the Darren Aronofsky movie was greeted with enthusiastic acclaim.
By Lester Fabian BrathwaiteSeptember 04, 2022 at 09:25 PM EDT

The accolades are already starting to roll in for Brendan Fraser's performance in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale.
After winning the Toronto International Film Festival's TIFF Tribute Award, Fraser was greeted with a standing ovation at the movie's Venice Film Festival premiere so rousing he cut short his exit to take it all in.

In the film, Fraser plays a reclusive English teacher with a compulsive overeating disorder, attempting to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink). An adaptation of MacArthur-winning playwright Samuel D. Hunter's acclaimed 2012 play of the same name, The Whale also stars Hong Chau, Samantha Morton, and Ty Simpkins.


"It's gonna be like something you haven't seen before," Fraser told Unilad last year of the film. "That's really all I can tell you. The wardrobe and costume was extensive, seamless, cumbersome. This is certainly far removed from anything I've ever done but not to be coy… I do know it's going to make a lasting impression."

The Whale does not have a theatrical date yet.
 
Dwayne Johnson cheers on Mummy costar Brendan Fraser: 'Rooting for all your success brother'

The minutes-long ovation for The Whale at the Venice Film Festival delighted Fraser's Mummy Returns costar.
By Clark CollisUpdated September 06, 2022 at 12:56 AM EDT




Brendan Fraser fans around the world were delighted to learn on Sunday that the actor received a lengthy standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival for his performance in director Darren Aaronofsky's The Whale. Among those pleased admirers? Dwayne Johnson, who made his debut movie appearance in 2001's Fraser-starring The Mummy Returns.
"Man this makes me so happy to see this beautiful ovation for Brendan," Johnson wrote on Sunday, retweeting footage of Fraser surrounded by the clapping Venice audience. "He supported me coming into his Mummy Returns franchise for my first ever role, which kicked off my Hollywood career. Rooting for all your success brother and congrats to my bud Darren Aronofsky."

In the 2001 sequel to 1999's The Mummy, Fraser reprised his role of adventurer Rick O'Connell while Johnson portrayed the character The Scorpion King.

When EW talked with Fraser three years ago for an oral history of The Mummy, the actor recalled that he did not work with Johnson on the set of the film, because Johnson's character was computer-generated in the scenes which featured O'Connell, but spoke warmly of the Jumanji star.
"He was a big orange piece of tape on the end of a long two-by-four while I was working [on the film] we jumped and ducked and weaved as he thrashed and smashed around at us," said Fraser. "I met him at the premiere for the first time and said, 'Hi! How do you do!' I sure liked meeting him very much and then ran into him a couple of times in the ensuing years. I was excited for him, because this was the first time that he was allowed to be an actor. He wasn't just the go-to muscles guy. He was transitioning from the wrestling world and it was fun. It was neat. I feel happy to have known him back in the humble beginnings times, when we were all kind of starting off."
In The Whale, Fraser plays Charlie, a man affected by severe obesity who is grappling with the loss of a lover as he attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter, played by Stranger Things breakout Sadie Sink.
The Whale does not have a theatrical date yet.
 
variety.com

‘The Whale’ Review: Brendan Fraser Is Sly and Moving as a Morbidly Obese Man, but Darren Aronofsky’s Film Is Hampered by Its Contrivances

Darren Aronofsky seamlessly adapts Samuel D. Hunter's play but can't transcend the play's problems.
variety.com variety.com

‘The Whale’ Review: Brendan Fraser Is Sly and Moving as a Morbidly Obese Man, But Darren Aronofsky’s Film Is Hampered by Its Contrivances
The director seamlessly adapts Samuel D. Hunter's play but can't transcend the play's problems.
By Owen Gleiberman
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Courtesy of A24

The return of Brendan Fraser — not that he ever really went away — has been a reminder of how much affection so many of us had for him back in the ’90s, when he had his moment in movies like “School Ties” and “Encino Man” and “Gods and Monsters” and “The Mummy.” Yet let’s be honest: This is not the comeback of John Travolta or Mickey Rourke. Fraser was always, in the best way, a lightweight actor: the clear blue eyes, the pin-up sexiness, the shaggy warm boyish innocence. The fact that, at 53, he’s no longer as beautiful as he once was is part of the Brendanaissance. He can no longer hold the screen as a cutie-pie hunk; he has to do it in other ways. And in “The Whale,” directed by Darren Aronofsky (who shepherded Rourke’s return in “The Wrestler”), Fraser is a better actor — slyer, subtler, more haunting — than he has ever been.


He plays Charlie, a man of many hundreds of pounds who sits all day long in his shabby dank apartment in a small town in Idaho. Fraser has been outfitted with a digital fat suit (the effects that bulk him up are a blend of prosthetics and CGI), and the result is that we see someone who looks at home in his flesh. The sloping jowls that consume his neck, the big wide back and gigantic jelly belly that spills down over his crotch, the arms and legs that are like meat slabs — Charlie is a mountain of a man, but he’s all of a piece. Fraser, with sweaty thinning hair plastered on his scalp, resembles an overstuffed Rodney Dangerfield. The actor sinks himself into that body, so that even as we’re gawking at a fellow the size of Jabba the Hutt we register the familiar soulful look in the eye, the distended remnants of the Fraser handsomeness.
When we first see Charlie, he’s frantically masturbating to a porn video. Once that’s over, it seems, for a while, like he literally can’t lift himself out of his armchair. With great effort, however, he finally does, using a walker to skulk around the apartment. Since Charlie is mostly a sedentary lump, you might expect him to have a lumpish personality too. But Fraser doesn’t play him with a heavy, glum, downbeat vibe. He’s gentle and spry, with a quick temperament — you might even say there’s something light about him — and this allows us, from the start, to see the man buried in the fat.
“The Whale” is based on a stageplay by Samuel D. Hunter, who also wrote the script, and the entire film takes place in Charlie’s apartment, most of it unfolding in that seedy bookish living room. Aronofsky doesn’t necessarily “open up” the play, but working with the great cinematographer Matthew Libatique he doesn’t need to. Shot without flourishes, the movie has a plainspoken visual flow to it. And given what a sympathetic and fascinating character Fraser makes Charlie, we’re eager to settle in with him in that depressive lair, and to get to the bottom of the film’s inevitable two dramatic questions: How did Charlie get this way? And can he be saved?


In case there is any doubt he needs saving, “The Whale” quickly establishes that he’s an addict living a life of isolated misery and self-disgust, scarfing away his despair (at various points we see him going at a bucket of fried chicken, a drawer full of candy, and voluminous take-out pizzas from Gambino’s, all of which is rather sad to behold). Charlie teaches an expository writing seminar at an online college, doing it on Zoom, which looks very today (though the film, for no good reason, is set during the presidential primary season of 2016), with video images of the students surrounding a small black square at the center of the screen. That’s where Charlie should be; he tells the students his laptop camera isn’t working, which is his way of hiding his body and the shame he feels about it. But he’s a canny teacher who knows what good writing is, even if his lessons about structure and topic sentences fall on apathetic ears.
Charlie has a friend of sorts, Liz (Hong Chau), who happens to be a nurse, and when she comes over and learns that his blood pressure is in the 240/130 range, she declares it an emergency situation. He has congestive heart failure; with that kind of blood pressure, he’ll be dead in a week. But Charlie refuses to go the hospital, and will continue to do so. He’s got a handy excuse. With no health insurance, if he seeks medical care he’ll run up tens of thousands of dollars in bills. As Liz points out, it’s better to be in debt than dead. But Charlie’s resistance to healing himself bespeaks a deeper crisis. He doesn’t want help. If he dies (and that’s the film’s basic suspense), it will essentially be a suicide.
It’s hard not to notice that Liz, given how much she’s taking care of Charlie, has a spiky and rather abrasive personality. We think: Okay, that’s who she is. But a couple of other characters enter the movie — and when Ellie (Sadie Sink), Charlie’s 17-year-old daughter, shows up, we notice that she has a really spiky and abrasive personality. Does Charlie just happen to be surrounded by hellcats and cranks? Or is there something in Hunter’s dialogue that is simply, reflexively over-the-top in its theatrical hostility?
Charlie and Ellie are estranged, and as the film colors in their relationship, we begin to put together the puzzle of how Charlie got to be the morbidly obese wreck he is. It seems that eight years ago, he left Ellie and her mother when he fell in love with one of his students, a man named Andy. Andy became the love of Charlie’s life, so he left the life he had behind. Ellie is still in a rage about it.
And what a rage it is! Sadie Sink, from “Stranger Things,” acts with a fire and directness that recalls the young Lindsay Lohan, but the volatile spitfire she’s playing is bitter — at her father, and at the world — in an absolutist way that rings absolutely false. Lots of teenagers are angry and alienated, but they’re not just angry and alienated. There are shades of vulnerability that come with being that age. We keep waiting for Ellie to show another side, to reflect the fact that the father she resents is still, on some level … her father.
“The Whale,” while it has a captivating character at its center, turns out to be equal parts sincerity and hokum. The movie carries us along, tethering the audience to Fraser’s intensely lived-in and touching performance, yet the more it goes on the more its drama is interlaced with nagging contrivances, like the whole issue of why this father and daughter were ever so separated from each other. We learn that after Charlie and Ellie’s mother, Mary (Samantha Morton), were divorced, Mary got full custody and cut Charlie off from Ellie. But they never stopped living in the same small town, and even single parents who don’t have custody are legally entitled to see their children. Charlie, we’re told, was eager to have kids; he lived with Ellie and her mother until the girl was eight. So why would he have just … let her go?
There’s one other major character, a lost young missionary for the New Life Church named Thomas, and though Ty Simpkins plays him appealingly, the way this cult-like church plays into the movie feels like one hard-to-swallow conceit too many. This matters a lot, because if we can’t totally buy what’s happening, we won’t be as moved by Charlie’s road to redemption. Near the end, there’s a very moving moment. It’s when Charlie is discussing the essay on “Moby Dick” he’s been reading pieces of throughout the film, and we learn where the essay comes from and why it means so much to him. If only the rest of the movie were that convincing! But most of “The Whale” simply isn’t as good as Brendan Fraser’s performance. For what he brings off, though, it deserves to be seen.
 
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Darren Aronofsky says he 'tried to research' obese actors for 'The Whale' before Brendan Fraser

Darren Aronofsky says he tried to find an obese actor to play 'The Whale' role that eventually went to Brendan Fraser.
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Darren Aronofsky says he couldn't find an obese actor who could 'pull off the emotions' of The Whale role

"From a health perspective, it’s prohibitive," Aronofsky said of the character eventually played by Brendan Fraser.
By Joey NolfiOctober 12, 2022 at 04:50 PM EDT

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Director Darren Aronofsky has revealed that he initially tried to cast an obese actor in the role of a 600-pound gay man that eventually went to Brendan Fraser in his upcoming, Oscar-buzzed film The Whale.
"There was a chapter in the making of this film where we tried to research actors with obesity," Aronofsky told Variety in an interview published Wednesday. "Outside of not being able to find an actor who could pull off the emotions of the role, it just becomes a crazy chase. Like, if you can't find a 600-pound actor, is a 300-pound actor or 400-pound actor enough?"

He added that he also grew concerned over whether a 600-pound person living with the same health issues as Charlie, the lead character, would physically be able to perform in the production.
Brendan Fraser in 'The Whale.'

| CREDIT: A24
"From a health perspective, it's prohibitive," the Requiem for a Dream helmer continued. "It's an impossible role to fill with a real person dealing with those issues."
In the film, Fraser portrays Charlie, a queer man struggling through his final days as he deals with life-threatening obesity. In his last moments, Charlie attempts to reconnect with his ex (Samantha Morton) and estranged daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), all while under the care of his nurse and longtime friend, Liz (Hong Chau).
Since the film's run through the fall festival circuit — where Fraser received the best reviews of his career — many have also criticized the movie as fatphobic for its title.

"The title deliberately pokes at some people's prejudices," explained writer Samuel D. Hunter, who previously brought The Whale into the world as a stage play. "I wasn't surprised by the blowback, because of the history of the way that obesity is treated on film. And we live in cynical and reactionary times."
The Whale debuts Dec. 9 in theaters.
 
variety.com

Brendan Fraser Will Not Attend Golden Globes After Accusing Former HFPA Boss of Groping Him: ‘My Mother Didn’t Raise a Hypocrite’

Brendan Fraser said he would be a hypocrite if he attended the Globes.
variety.com variety.com

Brendan Fraser Will Not Attend Golden Globes After Accusing Former HFPA Boss of Groping Him: ‘My Mother Didn’t Raise a Hypocrite’

By Zack Sharf
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Benedict Evans for Variety

Brendan Fraser is a frontrunner to land an Oscar nomination for best actor thanks to his acclaimed performance in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale.” But you rarely get to an Oscar nomination without stops at other major precursory awards first, including the Golden Globes, which will be back in full force on NBC in 2023.
Fraser confirmed to GQ magazine that he will not participate in the Globes if he is nominated for “The Whale” due to his accusation that Philip Berk, former president and member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, groped him at a 2003 luncheon at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Fraser revealed the alleged assault in a 2018 GQ interview. Berk later disputed Fraser’s allegations.


“I have more history with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association than I have respect for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association,” Fraser told GQ in his new cover story. “No, I will not participate… It’s because of the history that I have with them. And my mother didn’t raise a hypocrite. You can call me a lot of things, but not that.”
Fraser said his experience with Berk “made me retreat” from Hollywood. It also made him feel like “something had been taken away from me.” Following Fraser’s 2018 accusation, the HFPA said in a statement that it “stands firmly against sexual harassment and the type of behavior described in this article.” The organization also opened an investigation into the matter, which GQ reports ended with the HFPA proposing Fraser sign a joint statement that read: “Although it was concluded that Mr. Berk inappropriately touched Mr. Fraser, the evidence supports that it was intended to be taken as a joke and not as a sexual advance.” Fraser refused to sign, and Berk remained a voting member of the HFPA.
“I knew they would close ranks,” Fraser said. “I knew they would kick the can down the road. I knew they would get ahead of the story. I knew that I certainly had no future with that system as it was.”
The Globes and the HFPA have since gone through their own upheaval, starting in 2021 when the Los Angeles Times published a report revealing the group had no Black members. Berk was then expelled from the HFPA after sending an email to members criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement as a “racist hate movement.”
Why did the HFPA not drop Berk after Fraser’s original accusation? “I think it was because it was too prickly or sharp-edged or icky for people to want to go first and invest emotionally in the situation,” the actor said, adding that “at the moment” he does not believe in any of the reforms the HFPA has made in the last year.
“Maybe time will tell if they’re going to… I don’t know what they’re going to do,” Fraser added. “I don’t know.”
Fraser said he is willing to reconsider his relationship with the HFPA and the Golden Globes pending the organization wanting to make amends. “According to rules of engagement, it would be my responsibility to take a look at it and make a determination at that time, if that became the situation,” he said. “And it would have to be, I don’t know, what’s the word I’m looking for… sincere? I would want some gesture of making medicine out of poison somehow. I don’t know what that is. But that would be my hope. But it’s not about me.”


“The Whale” opens in theaters Dec. 9 from A24.
 
I think he's an underrated actor. I mean he's no Denzel or Olivier but he's not as bad as people make him out to be.

And he's fucking terrific in Doom Patrol in a purely voice role.
 

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