Among all the critical acclaim that the upcoming film The Whale is getting, Brendan Fraser's performance as the 600-pound Charlie is getting special recognition both for his acting and how the film was able to turn Fraser into the morbidly obese character. When the film was screened at TIFF, Fraser was asked to go into detail about what it was like to play Charlie.
Fraser went into detail on what it was like to physically transform into the 600-pound Charlie while filming The Whale. Fraser talked about what director Darren Aronofsky told him ahead of time before they started the film.
"He went on to explain that Charlie carries some hundreds and hundreds of extra pounds in body weight," Fraser said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. He then went into detail as to what it took to physically create Charlie on the screen, both in his appearance and in his personality. "To create that, we needed to start with costuming, apparatus, makeup. He would be doing a scan, a 3D rendering, printing without a mould of that. Then more traditional applications. An actor gets up early and we all drink a lot of coffee and look at YouTube videos. Then maybe I'd nap a bit. That's how it gets started. (Aronofsky) had me at 'I'm making a movie,' so that's why I went."
The Whale is Fraser's first lead since getting back into Hollywood following all of his personal issues, from his ugly divorce to the trauma he suffered both physically and sexually. Fraser was a certified A-List actor in the 1990s and 2000s, thanks primarily due to his success in family-friendly adventures like The Mummy franchise. Fraser had fallen out of the spotlight around the early 2010s but is now getting back into acting. Since Fraser has attempted his comeback, the internet has shown its support, which he greatly appreciates.
With all the buzz circulating that The Whale is Fraser's best performance as an actor to date, this could very well bring him back to the status he once had, or maybe even better than before. Fraser acted mostly in child-friendly movies when he was a top-billed actor. He acted in several dramas early in his career, like School Ties and With Honors, but once The Mummy franchise elevated him to a leading man, Fraser did not appear in many dramas after that, or, at least, not a lot of popular ones. Crash is the exception, but his role was pretty small in that movie. If Fraser is as good in The Whale as those who have seen it says he is, this could catapult him into a whole new stratosphere as an actor.
To see Fraser succeed in his comeback attempt certainly makes for one of the more heartwarming stories in 2022. For anyone who's studied up on what's happened to Fraser since coming into his own in Hollywood, it'd be hard not to think he deserves everything that's coming to him. Whether you're a fan of him or not, audiences can all agree that Fraser did not deserve to go through all the trauma he suffered. He was never one to indulge himself in controversy, nor was he one to phone in a performance. While the past is the past, it's great to see that Fraser's future is on the up and up.
The Whale will premiere in theaters on December 9, 2022.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter/Twitter