‘The Whale’ star Brendan Fraser has defended his use of prosthetics to play 600-lb character
Brendan Fraser, star of Darren Aronofsky’s newest movie, The Whale, has defended his use of prosthetics to play the 600-lb protagonist. The actor has been highly praised for his performance, which has helped to revitalise his career. Yet many people have taken issue with Fraser’s casting, stating that a real obese man should have gotten the part.
Mean Girls star Daniel Franzese said, “To finally have a chance to be in a prestige film that might be award-nominated, where stories about people who look like us are being told? That’s the dream. So when they go time and time again and cast someone like Brendan Fraser, me and the other big queer guys, we’re like, ‘What the … ?’ We can’t take it!”
However, Aronofsky called it “impossible” to find the right obese actor “dealing with those issues” to play the part. Similarly, Fraser defended his casting and use of prosthetics. “I think it’s one of the more exacting ways you can create a character and body and in this case the mandate that Charlie’s costume would respect the laws of gravity and physics as opposed to the many ways that we’ve seen that character depicted in films before as really a one-note joke, and in a costume that’s just unfair.”
He added, “That’s a personal view, but we felt an obligation to ensure that it was cumbersome. It was accurate, that was what we strived for.” The actor also revealed that he worked with Obesity Action Coalition as research for his performance. “I became accustomed to wearing Charlie’s body pretty quickly,” he shared. “I discovered that, once I took it off, I could still feel the sensation of wearing it, almost like an undulation.”
Fraser said, “At the same time, once I took all the applications off at the end of the day, I felt a deepening sense of respect for people who live in that corporal being because I could remove it like clothing and wardrobe and makeup, and their challenge to do that with their own body is not as sudden.”
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