The lead actor of The Whale (2022), Brendan Fraser, sat down for a Zoom interview with Deadline, where he talked about the project being proposed to him, filming it during a pandemic, and why he was glad he did this film later in his career rather than earlier.
Fraser played the part of Charlie, an English teacher trying to rekindle a relationship with his daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), after not being in her life for a while, suffering from morbid obesity that’s bringing him closer to death.
“Me and my castmates gave everything we had because it was a film made in COVID,” Fraser said, “and we didn’t know if there was going to be a tomorrow. In my view, years from now, we’re going to look back at the movies that were made [during the pandemic], and we’re going to see some kind of secret ingredient to all of them. Everyone lived under an existential threat, and a sincere concern for one another’s well-being and it’ll show in these performances.”
Fraser described director Darren Aronofsky first contacting him about the film based on Samuel D. Hunter’s play. He felt astonished to find out Aronofsky knew who he was.
“Darren was very frank about finding an actor who could psychically create the role from the outside but also give a performance that had an emotional depth,” Fraser said. “He was basically showing me his chessboard of how he was going to approach it, and I immediately wanted to stand next to him and help him figure out how to make all the pieces work together.”
When the pandemic arrived, Fraser assumed the project was over, but months later, plans were made to film with extensive safety protocols. Because of the pandemic, they couldn’t create a direct mold of Fraser’s face and instead had to work off a 3D scan.
“I learned how to exist as Charlie in this five-point harness that had conforming weight and a unitard with pipes running cold water through it. I also worked with our movement coach Beth Lewis, and we worked on centers of gravity, inertia to stand, and the support conditions that people who live with obesity have to have. My job was to sell it because, until this point in films, we haven’t seen a costume and makeup done with this kind of dignity and respect.”
Fraser claimed he couldn’t have done the film earlier in his career. “I didn’t have the life experience or the heartache. I hadn’t been a father long enough 10 years ago to appreciate what it means to have a young person in your life.”
“When this film was over, I had an unexpected reaction to taking off Charlie’s body the last time; I was really emotionally moved. I felt a strange sense of survivor’s guilt because I could take him off at the end of the day, and I’ve met people who live like that until they didn’t live anymore. I’ve had to take a page of my own sermon and rethink if I’ve been culpable or demeaning and overlooked them. Even if I did accidentally, I don’t ever want to do that again going forward.” (Via Deadline)
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