Brendan Fraser’s role in “The Whale” has been criticized because the actor is not gay and does not weigh 600 pounds like his character Charlie, with some voices calling the film lipophobic.
However, the performance, emotional message and physical transformation in “The Whale” also earned Brendan Fraser standing ovations, praise from the industry and fans, and an Oscar nomination.
To bring Charlie to life, he worked with the Obesity Action Coalition and talked to overweight people, though perhaps what helped him the most was the process of applying makeup and prosthetics to make him look like a 600-pound person.
- Brendan Fraser also stars in movie “Risky robbery”, which you can watch for free and in Spanish on ViX.
This is how Brendan Fraser transformed for his role in ‘The Whale’
Brendan Fraser’s transformation into Charlie was done by make-up artist Adrien Morot and included prosthetics, make-up and a special ‘fat suit’, weighing up to 300kg in total.
Brendan Fraser spent 5-6 hours in the make-up area every morning before filming began, although gradually the make-up artists reduced the time to 2-3 hours.
Now the makeup artist spoke to Entertainment Weekly on February 22, 2023 and shared a behind-the-scenes video showing the entire process and time it took to transform Brendan Fraser into Charlie.
Adrien Morot said that using the “fat suit” and combining it with the make-up to make it work in the dramatic film was a complex task, because generally in cinema they are used for comedies and seem exaggerated.
Regarding the prosthetics and costume, he commented that they were placed differently depending on the type of scene to be shot and the parts of Fraser’s body that appeared in the frame.
Watch the video of what the transformation process was like to bring Brendan Fraser to life as Charlie in director Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale: