Actor Brendan Fraser was moved to tears at the premiere of “The Whale” after the film received seven minutes of applause from the audience at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday night (4/9). Visibly moved, he was surrounded by the festival audience with requests for autographs and hugs.
The critical reception also praised the actor’s work, who was once one of the highest paid in the 90s, at the time of the “The Mummy” franchise, but in recent years he had worked more on TV than in film.
Speaking at the film’s press conference earlier in the day, Fraser said he “couldn’t wait to see if this film will make as deep an impression on everyone as it did on me.”
In “The Whale”, he plays Charlie, the 270-pound teacher who never leaves the house and tries to reconcile with his teenage daughter, played by Sadie Sink (from “Stranger Things”).
The entire film takes place inside Charlie’s apartment, who has a hard time getting up and moving around the house.
To experience the character, the actor gained weight, but his disproportionate size was the result of a lot of prosthetic makeup and a special costume. Fraser even confessed that he had to relearn how to walk with the weight of his fake “body”. “I got dizzy when the suit was taken off. I have empathy for someone with such a body. You have to be a strong person physically and mentally,” he stressed.
Speaking to the international press, director Darren Aronofsky said he spent ten years trying to find the right actor for the role, including some big stars. “Nothing worked,” Aronofsky said, until he saw the trailer for a production that Fraser shot in Brazil, entitled “12 Hours Until Dawn” (2006). “At that moment a light went on,” he said.
To confirm, Aronofsky decided to invite Brendan Fraser to do a reading with Sadie Sink, who had already been chosen, because the director considers her his “favorite young actress”. “Seeing the two of them together gave me goosebumps,” said the director.
Sink’s character is an angry teenager named Ellie, who is surprised to find her father and see, in addition to his fatness, that he is a kind and loving man. “In the first scene, Ellie has a lot to say, because in her head Charlie is a villain,” said the actress. “She wasn’t expecting someone who liked him, showing affection. She wasn’t expecting a loving father. Every scene is a battle. Ellie gets proof that she’s wrong, but she doesn’t want to be, because she doesn’t usually do it wrong on people.”
This difference of opinion was what inspired Aronofsky to want to film Samuel D. Hunter’s original play.
“The cynicism is alive in the film, but it is at war with Charlie’s vision,” he explained. “That’s why I wanted to make the film. It’s the most important message to get around the world right now. We all lean on cynicism and the dark side, and we don’t need it.”
Following its Venice premiere, “The Whale” will screen at the Toronto Film Festival in Canada before its US release on December 9th. There are still no predictions for the premiere in Brazil.
See below for Fraser’s enthusiasm when he received public recognition.
Watch Brendan Fraser cry over the 6-minute ovation he received for his latest film and remember battling depression, overweight, his mother’s death, injuries, divorce, reporter abuse and managed to return … 👏🏻pic.twitter.com/tZ1YhWz32q
– Mario Mojica Cuello (@mariomojc) September 4, 2022
Source: Terra
Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.
