Actor Brendan Fraser has said that playing the role of a severely obese man has taught him that those with similar bodies are “incredibly” strong people, both mentally and physically.
The Whale, which opens in competition at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday, has already created a stir with speculation that it could be on the way to Oscar success.
Directed by Darren Aronofsky, who won the festival’s Golden Lion in 2008 for The Wrestler, and based on the play of the same name by Samuel D. Hunter, it follows the story of Charlie, a reclusive English teacher near the end of his life trying to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption.
At a press conference on Sunday, Fraser, a megastar of the 1990s and early 1990s who has been largely absent from major projects for the better part of two decades, said the role was a learning curve for he “It gave me an appreciation for those who have a similar body. I learned that you have to be an incredibly strong person, physically, mentally, to inhabit this being,” she said.
“Charlie’s physical mobility is limited to the space of his home, which is his couch. His story is told behind closed doors. It is a light in a dark space. I think it’s poetic that the trauma he carries is manifested in the physical weight of his body.
From left: Darren Aronofsky, Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink and Hong Chau in Venice on Sunday. Photograph: Stefania D’Alessandro/Getty Images
“I needed to learn how to move in an absolutely new way. I developed muscles I didn’t know I had. I even felt a sense of vertigo at the end of the day when all the appliances were removed, as you would feel yourself going down from ‘a ship at the dock here in Venice.
The film also stars Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink and Ty Simpkins, Hong Chau and Samantha Morton. Aronofsky said he was “deeply moved” when he first saw Hunter’s play in New York. But the director took another 10 years to make the film, “because it took me about 10 years to cast [it],” he said.
“Casting Charlie was a huge challenge for a lot of different reasons. I considered everybody, every different kind of actor. Every movie star on the planet. But none of it ever clicked, it just didn’t move me, I didn’t it looked good. A couple of years ago I caught a trailer for a low-budget Brazilian film, saw Brendan in it, and a light bulb went off.”
Speaking about his career, Fraser, best known for roles in The Mummy, George of the Jungle and Gods and Monsters, said this role presented his biggest challenge.
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“In those days I saw myself differently [George of the Jungle] days My journey to where I am now has been about exploring as many characters as I could, and that presented the biggest challenge.
“By far I think Charlie is the most heroic man I’ve ever played, because his superpower is seeing the good in others and bringing it out. In the process, he’s on his own journey of salvation.”
Hunter, who adapted the script, recalled that when he originally wrote the play 12 years ago, he was a college professor asking his students to write something truthful and honest. “I got these amazing, beautiful things out of it. I was like, I want to write a story about an English teacher who is desperately trying to connect with a younger person…I think literature was always steeped in it, I wanted Charlie was a man of letters, a voracious reader.”
Aronofsky added: “The last few years, a lot of us have lost a lot. There’s been such a separation from human connection. Film is about human connection. It’s about the opportunity to put yourself in someone’s shoes. another person and have two hours of empathy and another person’s mind, and I think that’s exactly what the world needs.