Darren Aronofsky spent ten years casting The Whale, then found Brendan Fraser
For a decade Darren Aronofsky could not find the right lead for The Whale. Then he caught Brendan Fraser in the trailer for a low-budget Brazilian film and, as he put it, a light bulb went off. The role won Fraser the Best Actor Oscar, the first ever for a Canadian.
Fraser was born on 3 December 1968 in Indianapolis to Canadian parents, the youngest of four boys, and holds both citizenships. His father's job as a Canadian tourism official kept the family moving, through California, Seattle, Ottawa, the Netherlands and Switzerland. A family holiday in London in the 1970s took him to Oliver! in the West End, his first professional show, and he caught the acting bug. His uncle George Genereux won Olympic gold in trap shooting in 1952, the only Canadian gold of those Games.
He finished drama school at Cornish in Seattle in 1990 and abandoned plans for a master's degree once he had seen Hollywood. His first lead came in 1992 as a thawed-out caveman in Encino Man, and the same year he played a Jewish quarterback facing prejudice in School Ties, opposite a young Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. George of the Jungle in 1997 was his first big hit, Gods and Monsters opposite Ian McKellen showed his dramatic range, and The Mummy in 1999 made him one of the decade's biggest stars. In 2006 he became the first American-born actor on Canada's Walk of Fame.
Then things stalled. A 2010 Broadway play closed within a week, films flopped, and health and personal troubles piled up, including the fallout from a 2003 sexual assault by Philip Berk, then head of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Television kept him working, notably voicing Robotman in Doom Patrol.
Fans dubbed his return the Brennaissance, a label he has cheerfully acknowledged. To prepare for The Whale, in which he plays a man with severe obesity, he spoke over video calls with eight to ten people through the Obesity Action Coalition, some bedridden and some fully mobile. At its Venice premiere in September 2022 the film drew a six-minute standing ovation.
Source: Brendan Fraser
