Brendan Fraser is now an Oscar winner. He bagged the golden statue for Best Actor for his role in The Whale, directed by Darren Aronofsky. It’s widely known that the movie wasn’t easy for him due to the heavy prosthetics he had to wear to play the character of the 600-pound heavy Charlie. However, Fraser later revealed that playing the character made him develop a deep appreciation for people living with similar physical conditions, and also he developed muscles due to it.
Brendan Fraser Reveals The Surprise Muscles He Developed For The Whale
When The Whale screened at the Venice International Film Festival, Brendan Fraser told Variety that he developed muscles that even he wasn’t aware of while playing Charlie. The Oscar-winning actor explained:
“I developed muscles I did not know I had. I even felt a sense of vertigo at the end of the day when all the appliances were removed; it was like stepping off the dock onto a boat in Venice. That [sense of] undulating. It gave me appreciation for those whose bodies are similar. You need to be an incredibly strong person, mentally and physically, to inhabit that physical being.”
In another interview with Variety, Adrien Morot, the prosthetics makeup designer on the film revealed that Fraser had to sit still in a chair for six hours every day so that the makeup team could transform him into Charlie. Morot also shocked everyone by saying that the makeup and prosthetics together weighed about 300 pounds. Due to this, they had to use a contraption to keep the actor down. Fraser said:
“Underneath [the prosthetics] was a body-sculpted costume that was modular, and there were several layers and a cooling suit similar to what race-car drivers wear. It’s tubes that are crisscrossed and run cold water over your body. Mastering the right temperature was a challenge … My body melted eight bags.”
All of the hard work obviously paid off because Fraser made a grand comeback after allegedly getting blacklisted by Hollywood.
Brendan Fraser’s Oscar-Winning Comeback
When Brendan Fraser went up the stage to collect his golden statue for The Whale, he didn’t forget to mention the hardships he had to endure to reach where was today. In his speech he said:
“I thank the Academy for this honor and for our studio, A24, for making such a bold film. And I’m grateful to Darren Aronofsky for throwing me a creative lifeline and hauling me aboard the good ship, The Whale… I started in this business 30 years ago. And things, they didn’t come easily to me, but there was a facility that I didn’t appreciate at the time until it stopped. And I just want to say thank you for this acknowledgment, because it couldn’t be done without my cast.”
Fraser had previously accused Philip Berk, the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association of s*xually assaulting him. In a 2018 GQ interview, he said:
“His left-hand reaches around, grabs my ass cheek, and one of his fingers touches me in the taint. And he starts moving it around. Am I still frightened? Absolutely. Do I feel like I need to say something? Absolutely. Have I wanted to many, many times? Absolutely. Have I stopped myself? Absolutely. I felt ill. I felt like a little kid. I felt like there was a ball in my throat. I thought I was going to cry.”
The actor also accused Berk of blacklisting him from Hollywood, which led to long spells of no work for him. Berk has denied all such allegations. However, Fraser has turned a new leaf in his career now and his next project, Killers of the Flower Moon directed by Martin Scorsese, alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, will surely open more doors for him.
Killers of the Flower Moon will be released in May 2023 and The Whale is available for rent on Amazon Prime Video.
Source: Variety
