Brendan Fraser wants to be worthy of his comeback
Once upon a time, when a gigantic Marlboro Man was perched in front of the Chateau Marmont and a three-course meal for two still cost well under $100 at Spago, Brendan Fraser arrived in Hollywood ready to conquer it and found, with some surprise, that the place didn’t put up a fight. Movie stardom came a little too easily to the young, strapping Canadian, and he knows that now, because he’s since been through passages of life that proved much harder.
“I’ve been driving around, looking at this town I used to live in,” Fraser, now 54, told me recently in Los Angeles, “and it’s like seeing ghosts of myself, the recollections that come back.”
He remembers the excitement of the 1990s, when he hit it big with lead roles in films like “Encino Man” and “School Ties,” swung through the trees as the amiably hunky “George of the Jungle” and engaged in dashing feats of derring-do in “The Mummy.” But he was perceived less as a serious actor and more as a handsome goof. And as Fraser’s big-screen comedies began to pay fewer dividends in the 2000s, he contended with a series of offscreen difficulties, including a costly divorce, injuries incurred from years of grueling stunt work, and a sexual assault that he said was committed by former Golden Globes boss Philip Berk and that caused him to withdraw from the spotlight. (Berk has denied the accusation.)
In 2020, director Darren Aronofsky stumbled upon an old movie trailer featuring Fraser and thought the actor was ripe for reclamation: He offered Fraser the lead role in “The Whale,” based on the play by Samuel D. Hunter, about Charlie, an obese professor who has withdrawn from the world but is trying to make things right with his estranged daughter (Sadie Sink). To play Charlie, Fraser consulted with the Obesity Action Coalition and donned a prosthetic suit so heavy that it had to be filled with tubes of cold water to regulate his body temperature.
“It was a fusion of man and machine, in a way,” he said.
Fraser’s performance in “The Whale” has earned him an Oscar nomination and a Screen Actors Guild Award for best actor, and later this year, he’ll be seen in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” proving that his prestige comeback is no one-off.
“If directors are painters and actors are the different colors, there hasn’t been a color like Brendan on the palette for a very long time,” Aronofsky said. “I’m really, really proud that he’s getting what he deserved.”
In person, Fraser is so courtly and soft-spoken that simply munching on a salad opposite him can make you feel as if you’re crashing cymbals together. When I met him at a West Hollywood hotel restaurant in mid-February, he spoke with humility about the awardsseason arc that has made him a Hollywood star again.
“I’ll take nothing for granted, knowing how far-reaching this journey has been,” he said.
Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.
Q: How does it feel to be making these acceptance speeches and bear witness to so many tributes?
A: I’m having a repetition of out-of-body experiences, pinching myself: Is this really happening to me? My obligation is to take ownership of this wave of generosity and support. It’s really boggling my mind and I’m so grateful for it, but I’d be remiss to not acknowledge it properly.
Q: In what way do you need to take ownership of all these events?
A: I just need to be worthy of them because I’m aware of where I was, where I went and where I am now. At the same time, I’m reticent to become overconfident about anything because I’ve been on the merrygo-round a number of times, and I know that if you’re too comfortable, you can become complacent. That’s when you get into trouble and let your standards lower and let things slide that otherwise would be really concerning to you.
Q: How did you prepare for “The Whale”?
A:
The Obesity Action Coalition gave me access to many people, so I could ask them their story on Zoom calls. I talked to maybe eight or 10 people — some bedridden, some perfectly mobile — and asked them, “Walk me through your diet for a day.” And they would describe it to me in [the] way a person drinks, a person uses substances, sex, gambling addiction.
Self-medicating by eating is all in the same wheelhouse of that behavior, a cycle of risk, reward, risk, reward, pleasure me, pleasure me. We humans, shaved apes, can’t not press the button. That happens in the same way neurologically as it does for people who have those other vices as a crutch in their life, so if they deserve your sympathy, so does a person who has the temerity to just exist in a body that’s enormous. I say that cynically.
Q: What of yourself did you bring to Charlie?
A: I know what it feels like to be the brunt of a joke that’s mean. You’re looking at a guy who has been compared against an example of myself from 25 years ago in a loincloth. That’s salacious and sells copies of the Daily Mail, but to hell with the consequences of who might be the human being on the receiving end of that kind of scorn and derision. Guess what? It’s not nice.
I have feelings. I can identify with the constant harangue that people who live in oversized bodies have to endure in their daily life. They become overlooked by doctors, they don’t get the same attention. That really does play at your confidence, and it can lead to more harmful behavior. It’s a health consequence that is essentially eradicated if we just stop being mean to one another.