A Spotlight on Brendan Fraser

step back from it all. In two and twenty two, Brendan re emerged with his latest film called The Whale. In the film, Brendan plays Charlie, a housebound six hundred pound man striving to reconnect with his daughter. The Whale has received several accolades and Brendan one Best Actor prize at the Critics Choice Awards. Just last month. He even received his first Oscar nomination for his role. The film promises to give you a glimpse into the often complex

nature of life. I found it to be fascinating and Brendan's performance to be excellent. It's a pleasure to sit down with Brendan today to talk about his latest film. Welcome to my podcast friend in I'm so happy that you're able to talk to us today. Me. I'm so glad to be her brother. And we've seen each other often on You were a neighbor for a while. Did you sell your property in Bedford? No, I still am your neighbor. There was oh you are Yeah, there was one piece. I had two of them, but I did

sell one. Yes, But you were on my TV show several times. We did some really great segments together. You were so active in the movies. What made you kind of step back a little bit? I want to get to that life. I had kids, I had moved from Los Angeles to upstate New York to Bedford. I wanted to raise them in a neighborhood that had proper seasons. I mean, Los Angeles is great, but it's seventy seven degrees all the time mostly, and it can become you know,

a bit. It's hard to mark time in in La for me, like, you only really know the passage of seasons by whatever you see on the mannequins window dressing in the department stores on Wilshire Avenue, So you know, to put a scarfod and you go, oh wow, look at that it must be December. But that's in La But certainly living in upstate where you are, where we are, there's so much more variety. I think it just makes you feel more connected to where you are, and it's

easier to mark the passage of time. I find too. You know, a lot of a lot of Los Angeles people are moving to Bedford. It seems like this is now because the Los Angeles of the east, so many, so many people in your profession and the movies and theater are moving to our town. And I'm so happy because it's like an infusion of excitement here. Oh good, and uh and I want you to stay here. I want to go riding with you somewhere. Are you going to still ride? I would like that very much, Martha.

My Fresians are waiting for you. Oh good. I should mention that my beloved horse Pecas has gone on to the Rainbow Bridge and greener pastors. Well you were you were used Pecas in a in a film, in a series, didn't you. That's where I met him, was, yeah, Durango, Mexico. We were doing Texas Rangers in eighteen thirty six, and everybody here's an epic and we were all assigned a horse, and I bonded with mine, and you brought him north. I sure did. He went overland from Durango all the

way up to Juarez, Mexico, and that the border. He survived two quarantines, got on a FedEx plane in El Paso and they flew him to JFK. And then he marched right off the plane and he went into his barnstall as if it had always been there. And the guys who delivered him, they were they were like, we've been doing this for a long time. And I just gotta say, your horse walked on like he owned the place and wanted to know what the movie was on the flight and what's for lunch. But he wanted to

be with you, obviously. I think he knew he had a good thing coming, and he surely deserved it. I gave him a job because he needed. He was a staff horse. What does that mean? He would pull the plow or the battle wagon in days of yore. He needed, he needed, he was he had a real ethic. It's sort of duty bound. He was a workhorse. Yes, there Ago properly said um. And my son, who has an

intellectual disability, was perfect for him. They were matched so well because even if if Griffin didn't want to ride that day, or just didn't want to ride for you know, too long, he was content to just get a bucket and a brush and kids on the spectrum. They loved that repetitive motion and the horse loves it, and he loved it. It was really a beautiful thing to behold. I got some great pictures of him too. Well. Do

you remember when we went riding together. I was on my freesian rins and you and Pecos that we had a little altercation. Do you don't remind me? How can I forget? I can see everything and stop motions for one reason or another. My horse took offense to your horse's partner, sniffing him from behind. And I never saw Pecas do this before, but he loaded up with both cannons and went boom and put it in your horse's chest.

I was more if I everybody dove at the horses to you know, separate them and calm them and everything. But and it wasn't my horse, It was the other horse. It wasn't your horse. You were no yep, and oh brother, So you see, Brenda and I do have do have history still speaking after that, Martha, I am indeed. So, why after your little hiatus which was how many years? How many years, didn't you make a movie? Um, well, a feature film. I think I only had a stretch

up about two or three years so long. I mean, I've only always been busy with something a television series, you know, a part. I did a lot of voice work and those those. At that time, I was a long time player on a show called Doom Patrol, which was also voice work. I voiced a robot named Cliff Steel, and I was kept busy. I never felt as if

I was completely removed from the business. But in feature films, it also came at a time in my career and in the industry when it seemed like most films were going through growing pains to size up or down given the new platforms of technology, to bring them straight to streaming, or should they release to a big, wider release and a big screen. So as a result, I had to get creative and find different things to do to just keep myself active. Did you see what Steven Spielberg said

about the new Tom Cruise movie No today? Oh, he said a very nice thing. He said that it kind of saved not only the movie industry, it saved the theater industry and because of the pandemic, and that just what you were saying. It was it for streaming, was it for release in the theaters? Steven Spielberg really thinks that Top Gun was the movie of the year for preserving the movie industry, and it's kind of fun to think about that. Uncontestable. I agree with him. Well, your

newest film was so great. It's a fantastic movie. I really, I really thought your performance was extraordinary. We sat in the movie theater quietly. It was like dead silence. Everybody was concentrating so much on you and on your acting. It was just an incredible experience. And here we are in a movie theater finally, and we watched that performance of yours playing a six hundred pound reclusive man. What was the objective of the movie, Well, Charlie is familiar

to audiences and certainly was to me. When I read this greenplay, I felt like I knew this guy, or I know him. He's relentlessly positive. He's an educator, he's a father, he's an English professor right his students. He teaches online and for complex reasons of his personal shame. He keeps the camera turned off. He's a man who has lived with certain regrets after having blighted his marriage when he fell in head over heels in love and made a decision to leave his wife and live with

that man. And in the transition, his daughter was compromised, and she was only eight years old. And we find him around nine ten years later at the start of the film, and he's still alone. His partner is gone. He died and died right correct, and he feels intense remorse. And he is clearly in poor health as he has been. He's been harming himself by overconsumption and it's it's a needing disorder that he has. But that's not so important apart from the fact that he is quite unhealthy and

he has very little time left. And so if he's going to redeem himself in a way that's meaningful, he needs to reconnect with his daughter, who's named Ellie, and she's played by a wonderful actress called Sadie Sink, who your listeners might remember from recently from Stranger Things. She's terrific, terrific. Hitch I thought she was totally brilliant in her part. She was just intensely against making friends with you her dad.

Her take on the character was that she was a very hurt little girl still and that pain was manifested in this very focused rage. That's eighty as a particular brand, she should. She's unique in the energy that she brings every day. Martha, I felt like I was just smitten, falling off of my chair watching this kid do her job, and she was constantly getting the gold star every single day. I mean, her talent really is pressing it for someone as young as she is. Well, so was your caregiver fantastic?

That's Hong Chow. She Wow. She plays Liz Hang Chow is a brilliant actress who has and tell me what you think. She seems like she can convey so much just in the pauses and the silence is in between lines of spoken dialogue, and she has such a gravity and authenticity that she she brings to this role of Charlie's best friend also his de facto caregiver. Charlie is

homebound his mobile homebound. It is an issue for him and he can't step outside his door for the fact that he just doesn't have the wind to do it. His body weighs hundreds and hundreds of pounds, and he's mobile with a walker at first, and then Liz gifts him a mobility chair. And it's important that he is stranded on a corner apartment on the second floor in Anywhere, Idaho, just to really drive home the point of how isolated he is. The whole film takes place inside that two

bedroom apartment. So how many days did it take to film the film? About thirty two or three work days, so it was six day weeks. So it was the winter of twenty twenty one in Newburgh, New York. So you were there for six weeks, yes, and filming how long were the days? We see? It seemed like it was always daytime. Yeah. Well, it's a dark apartment that he lives in, and then as the film goes on and as Charlie has revelations, it becomes brighter and lighter

until he's literally going to the lights. And that's important too. Matt Matdie Libatique is the cinematographer who made sure that Because this film is based on the stage play by Samuel D. Hunter, who produced it initially in twenty twelve at New Horizons in the city where Darren Aronovsky, our director, first saw it and became so fixated that he had

to make it into a movie. The story that happens inside Charlie's apartment is very often mirrored by the weather systems that hit the windows, by what's going on outside. And this film still has not a theatrical but more of a presentational aspect to it, because it's translated from

the stage production. And it's important that the story takes place inside this little apartment, because I don't think it would what do you think, I don't think it would be the same movie experience if we went and found out where Liz works, or if she went to the grocery store or oh no, you know no. It was so much It was so much like a play, but so expansive at the same time. And that has a lot to do with with your performance, of course, and

the and the other performances in that movie. How long did it take for you to actually get into the character of Charlie. Well, we had a three week rehearsal, which is rare for films, but A twenty four who was producing this was supportive of Darren's requirements, and so then we approached it as would as he said, we are now a theater company. On day zero and we worked on a taped out one to one mock up of the apartment in rehearsal hall. We watched each other's

scene work. As with a theater company, we figured out the blocking. In that way, Darren could get an idea about no actually, you know, create a shot list about where he's going to put his camera to tell the story. So we had all of that homework done before we arrived. On how many people were in the room with you at all times, there were a few because again this is a film that was made in time of COVID, so there were precautions and you know, all of the

protocols in place. But was helpful because we could get back to work. Although we were all of us taking a calculated risk, and none of that's lost on anyone who's worked during the period between twenty nineteen say twenty two. Everyone who chose to come and make this move was really invested in it in a way that I think heightened the very film itself. It's incredible. So how long did it shake for you to get dressed well? Because

your your your outfit was also your body. Clearly, he's a man who has a challenge of obesity, and he has to be created and depicted faithfully, respectfully and with dignity. And that meant an elaborate prosthetic makeup which was created, which was also nominated for an Oscar. Adrian Moreau is a long collaborator of Darren's. Yeah, incredible, thank you, I'll

tell him, he said. So he worked outside of the traditional life cast molding process where you pour the goop on your face and then from that create a bust and from that sculpt or compound and create the appliances that are then put on to the living actor's face. Again in that for one we couldn't get together because of COVID, and two this had to be seamless, so I was scanned by the producer in my driveway with an iPad. That data went to Adrian. He created Charlie's

body from head to toe, each and every pore. He approached that body, that character makeup as if it were a texture map. It's that precise, down to the size of the pores, the placement of little skin anomalies, etc. And that's important because he was able to three D print the busts that would create the applications that could be put on me. So when you watch the film The Whale, it's arresting at first for the first five minutes because clearly its audience is going, wow, that's Brendan Fraser.

He's changed. But after five minutes because you don't notice that it's a makeup any longer. You've invest yourself in the story and kind of fall in love with this guy. And to create that, it meant a six hour initial makeup test to see if or not we had a movie, because in absence of the makeup or an audience second guessing what a makeup artist has done because they see the you know, the seams or the construction lines as it were, and disbelieve it, we would lose our audience.

But with a three D printing process, there's nothing to be detected. And this is not a digital creation, as has been incorrectly reported in the medium. Your eyes are always you and that's amazing that unpold was a rule that Darren gave to Adrian that he couldn't, you know, restrict the face my face, because you know it's it's

essentially mask work and costume work. But still he needed that, you know, the human connection, and you know that had his own set of challenges marked there because when you put a silicate application on your face, and if I would, you know, play a scene where my my heart would get beating and maybe I'd flush and get red, but clearly the part that was artificial wouldn't. So you know, we had to we had to. We had to keep a real close eye on matching the colors and everything.

But I was going to tell you that the rule also was that this was a makeup that must obey the laws of gravity and physics, that it had to have a weighted quality to it. It was filled with, you know, instead of what has been used in films and TV forever have been actors and really kind of a Halloween costume type effect that's filled with cotton batting, and it's an athletic or fit actor giving a performance

that defies gravity. And our Charlie needed to have the authenticity, that the identity that that this required so that we didn't feel like we're putting quotation marks around this character. No, and it was it was incredibly realistic. Incredibly did you study obese obesity and obese people for the party. I met with the Obesity Action Coalition, who are a remarkable advocacy group who attend. They're members who number in the tens of thousands across the country in Canada, and I

hope they're expanding. I know that as a result of this movie, their work is getting their mission statements and the bias against those who live with obesity, and they are already seeing that the support that they're receiving and the number of people who are actually having the emboldening themselves by seeing this movie to ask for help when otherwise they wouldn't have been. It's already starting to make a difference than Oh good, this is a film that's

changing hearts and minds. I can attest to oh good, that's wondered I did. I did meet with them because it was important for us to have their sensibilities and to observe the sensitivities that come with bringing this story to the screen. Their mission statement is really just to end the bias against those who live with obesity, and

we see it in our culture. We see it in the media, and there's terminology and there are you know, vernacular in words that we still use that we can retire we don't need anymore that are actually hurtful to people. And I say that not just because you shouldn't be mean to one another. I mean, we kind of know that, but we should be reminded of it, but because there really are healthcare ramifications, real risk to people's bodies by

how we speak to one another. By harming their confidence at an early age, sets in motion a pattern that's very hard for people to break, and it can become a can It can take a child, for instance, a lifetime of feeling as if they've being you can feel less than who they are, and that affects their health.

Given that Charlie is a character who eats to self medicate with food, and he does effectively eat his trauma, and the result of that trauma is represented in the size of his body, so clearly he's a man in a lot of emotional pain. Working with the OAC gave me a certainty that I had a mission of my own and to be their voice. And Tom approach this job with my job with all of the dignity that

I believe that it's owed. It is um so interesting that you are You are making a difference for the for the world of obesity, society considers it to be some sort of moral failing or fault of the individual. I don't think those who live with obesity really have had a fair shake, to tell you the truth, and that's just a personal view. But since what the turn of the twentieth century, foods have become processed, high end sugars, empty calories, etc. Cheaply produced and really placeholders as far

as nutrition go. And on top of that in a way that if you look at it, it's not fair that the flavors are fabricated, often in laboratories by scientists who have targeted your taste buds to make it almost impossible to not have just one. You have to have the whole box, if not the shelf, and that is what sets a cycle in motion. And I have empathy and sympathy for those who find themselves on the receiving end of that. But the good news is there is there is a way through it, if you can summon

the courage to ask for help. And I can tell you now again I'm receiving messages from around the world from There was a man in the UK. It was reported by BBC he had just seen the trailer for the whale, and he said, that's my story. I live at home with the camera turned off and I work from my computer. He won't leave his apartment. He is estranged from his daughter, and it is a story they can identify with and give him the courage to say, I want to make a change in my life now.

And he will pursue, for instance, a bariatric procedure. And that's positive right there. This character, Charlie, he could save lives if he has not already. Well, congratulations on that. That is amazing. It's a really really unusual film. It's a heartbreaking film. It's a heartrending film. Your character emotes so many different different feelings. And I wish you well with the oscars, by the way, would that be great? It would be great. Who are you up against? Oh,

let's see, there's some great performances this year. There's Austin Butler and Elvis oh yeah, Colin Farrell in Banshee's of Innes Sharing, Oh yeah, Bill Nihey in Living and um, I'm Paul mescal in After Sun and All. And they're also different. I mean they're so different. I think all the first time nominees too, Oh boy. And it should be it should be. I remember Bill Nihey's been saying that that he had never expected it. Um and uh and Elvis, Oh my god, what a great performance. But

oh amazing. It is a very difficult field this year. Oh well, best of luck, Bred, Thank you my neighbor. Well why do you think you were cast in the role? Darren Aronofsky is a world class filmmaker. He has never offered up any easy answers to the human condition in his movies Bury You to Look Away, and he presents the spiky sides of life that maybe we would circumnavigate or avoid, but because we want to know, we watch

his films and they're unflinching for that night. I deeply admire him as a filmmaker and have done as he and I both kind of came up in the industry around the same time, from the nineties until now. Had you ever worked with him before? No, I'm not, Martha. The word was out that he wanted to make it, that he was going to make a movie, and he was interested in meeting me, and that was astonishing, and

the answer was yes, I do want to. But I automatically felt a real healthy measure of creative intimidation, I'll admit to you. But when I met him at his offices in twenty he was a gentleman and he presented to me the challenge he had before him as a director, UM, which was to cast this role of Charlie, a man

whose body weighs hundreds and hundreds of pounds. And he had been forthcoming that he had met many, many, many actors for a ten year period and just didn't find what what said, Yes, this is correct for him, And like I said, you know, you didn't get the indication. He's a very single he's a very singular vision when he makes something. UM. And he had seen I think a trailer from something I did in a film that was in sal Paulo, Brazil a number of years before.

He was on a YouTube rabbit hole or so he says, and he had I popped up and he went, you know, lightbulb, it would mean wearing that elaborate costume and makeup. It was cumbersome. It was, it was. It was I forgot to say this earlier. It was filled with you know, instead of like I said, traditionally the or previously like sort of cotton batting. It was, it was filled with

different combinations of pellets and what are they those orbis pellets? Garden, Yeah, sort of gelatine they yes, they have some weight to it. So like I say, Charlie's body must obey physics and gravity. How many hours a day were you in it? Twelve to fourteen? Yes, it was exhausting, and yes it gave me an appreciation in the most unique way to feel what an emulation of what it feels like to live in a body of that size. And something interesting happened

I was not expecting. When it came off each day and took an hour to get out of, I still felt as if I was carrying that. I still felt a sense of like vertigo, you know when you get out of a boat and you step out of the dock and for a moment you get you who whoa. You know. I had that undulation. And I think that because it was my own brend in my body was responding to having the exertion, pressure and weight on it

and from all different sides. And I was adapting in a way but confusing myself by taking it on and off enough. And I think what it did is just it drove home for me how the very tactile sensation of living in that body, must feel it affected the way I could breathe. It gave me a sort of a wheezing sound. But it looked like that, it looked like you were really really belaboring the weight. I mean,

it's just like incredible. I was to an extent affecting a performance to sell that it was heavier than it really was. Did you find that that you felt like you had sympathy for this individual? Oh, totally, because he was He is a nice person, and he's smart, and he's stuck and he's depressed. All the bad things happening to this guy all at the same time. And then the daughter, you could tell she loved him, but she

hated him and she's very angry. It feels like we all have you know that individual, that optimistic man who is a man of letters or a person of letter that we know. I know it Charlie. I've known versions of Charlie's throughout my own life. So you have three sons, yes, So this is ultimately a story about fatherhood and uh, and you are you spent? Do you spend a lot of time with your kids? They're they're they're finishing up school and they can't do it fast enough right now

because they're eager to get out into the world. Ones just started driving. Well, both of them have. Actually my oldest son who I mentioned on the spectrum, he's a big kid too. Well, you say on the spectrum, does he have autism? Correct? Yes, yes, his body is large, but he's also like a sis fifteen foot triple wide eyed. I met him. I met him. You brought hup to dinner to Marco's house. Yeah, and uh, and he seemed

a pleasant young man. There's twenty. We were there to listen to a violinist who is brilliant and he's keenly interested in music. He always has been. And while having a conversation with him may seem halted, he is able to convey his wants and his needs and two word sentences or little bursts, and other than that, he's the most intuitive. He understands everything. You know once you I learned as a father that once I thought was Griffin

getting this. Yeah, he is, Believe me. He knows everything going on around him, but he doesn't need to be talking about it so much like you're listening to me blather on and on and on. I think he's got this thing sorted out to tell you the truth. Oh great, and you're a you're a really lovely father. So of all the films you've done in your career, and you've done a lot, Uh, which film did you enjoy most making? Wow? Well, I'm going to cheat and say there're aspects of not

all of them, but many, many of them. I can remember every day at work on my very first film, which was school Ties in nineteen ninety one to ninety two, and it was a big deal for me. It was a breakthrough role. I worked alongside Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and Cole Houser, big cast. It was modeled kind of on the model of the film Diner, which was very big in the eighties, which introduce I Love Diner.

So school Ties was a first film for me, and you know, I was enchanted for what I was learning and the fact I was pinching myself to just be there. As the story of a kid who goes to a prep school and he's only allowed to be there because he's a very good quarterback, and the school is willing to overlook that he is Jewish because they don't approve, but they do need glory brought to them. So he's a ringer who can throw football. But he has to make a decision about whether or not to own who

he is essentially fundamentally, or to play along. And he's he's he has that he has a real moral dilemma. He does make a mistake, but he learns from it that that's the film school Ties. If you haven't seen it, I encourage you to check it out. It it holds up really well. So what's next you have? I think you have a movie coming out this spring? Another movie I worked Get This. I worked with Martin Scorsese. Can you be a deal? It is your first movie with

him him? Yes, oh boy. I had a small part and a epic piece that he has done with the usual round of Robert de Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio. I worked with John Listgow. It's the story of the Osage Indian nation at the turn of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, when mineral rights were being appropriated by the locals in Oklahoma, who were bending a lot of rules to be kind and essentially stealing back the oil from the inhabitants who had been sent there. The Native American

Indian nation. Yes, Um, so look at the Scorsese movie is epic and scope. We were in um, I think it wasn't It was a Baptist church and they completely remodeled the inside of it to make it look like brand new Federalist court architecture in you know, nineteen twenty something.

And they built the pews, every the molding, everything, none of it's cg and filled it with a and Martin shot a courtroom scene with four cameras, quadruple coverage, one long single takes, one long take with a courthouse fooled with people who actually had were descendants of the Osage Indian nations, a court, a jury, everything like that, and it felt like living in again, like a theatrical production.

It was quite remarkable experience for me. But that'll be I don't have a date for it, but yeah, coming up. So you're out in California a period and all these things. What do you do with your family? Did you come back and forth? Oh? Yeah, I've been. I've been racking up a lot of sky miles lately. Um, I'm gonna bring my kids with me to the Oscars. That that's my reward right there, No matter what the result is what else should people know about you Brendon? About me? Yeah,

I'm handy at a grill. Oh good, I like playing with knives and fire like let the boys do um. I do archery to relax and clear my mind. Oh I just got a whole bunch of bows and arrows where wow? Really right here in bed for you? So you come over, really nice ones, This is for you know, for for archery. I love archery. I was on the archery team at Barnard, and so I want to I want to pick up my skill again. And my grandchildren, my two grandchildren love archery, so that'd be fun. So

you have to come over. You're gonna ride one of You're gonna ride one of my Freezians, and then you're gonna show us your skills as an archer. I will do. Do you know what kind of bows are? They are? They recurve bows, long, recur recurve bows. And there's a good there's a good strong one for you. Oh god, you have to get them different, a different, you know,

different strengths for younger and older. But yeah, you want to like a fifteen pound poll or yeah, I think I made a mistake and I think I got, I got, I got a couple of big ones by mistake, but they're here. Yeah, anything for some adults doesn't work for them. But well, thank you so much for joining us, and really, best of luck. We're rooting for you. We're rooting for the Whale as a movie. And your movie company actually

got eighteen nominations for Oscars this year, didn't you. They're having a banner year, their manner year for a small new movie production company. It's really great. We'll give my best to them and are very very best to you, and thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Martha. Uh I hope to see you soon. See you soon in upstate New York. Bye bye for now,