A lot has been made about Brandan Fraser’s performance in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale. Many have praised the actor’s performance, sometimes while simultaneously being critical of Fraser for covering himself in prosthesis in order to portray an extremely overweight man. Fraser, however, says that while many performances may but an actor in a “fat suit” for a laugh, that’s not what this was.
Speaking with Deadline, Brendan Fraser talked about the experience of spending four hours getting into the prosthetics to transform him into his character. And the prosthetics were very much part of the performance. They followed the “laws of physics and gravity” and since the character Charlie had significant mobility issues, the same was true of Fraser when he was in full make-up. He explained…
It was cumbersome, with good reason. Because putting an actor in a costume, an apparatus, to emulate weight gain for the character has, in years past, cut the corner on authenticity. It’s normally the silhouette of a costume that’s worn by a fairly athletic actor and it’s in service of a cheap joke or to vilify a character.
While there have been some that feel that casting Brendan Fraser at all, rather than an appropriately sized actor, was not the best call, it’s clear that the team making The Whale did what they could to make the character of Charlie not come across as some sort of joke. The prosthetics were made to be as real as possible. Fraser himself met with obesity advocates in order to better understand the sort of character he would be playing.
Brendan Fraser clearly draws a line between what some performers have done to make themselves look obese for comedic purposes, and what The Whale was doing with him. In this case, it seems that intent is a big part of things. The goal was to make everything as real to the character’s experience as possible. When Deadline’s reporter mentioned the term “fat suit” Fraser made it clear that’s not what he was wearing, saying…
You’ll never hear me say that.
It’s certainly understandable why Brendan Fraser wouldn’t see what he went through as quite the same thing as a “fat suit.” When we think of fat suits we think of Mike Myers playing Fat Bastard in an Austin Powers movie or Weird Al in the music video for “Fat.” Those were also created with makeup and prosthetics, but authenticity was about the furthest thing from anybody’s mind in those cases.
Intent certainly matters, and The Whale is a movie that tries to handle sensitive topics properly. Many believe the movie does just that, and that Fraser may be taking home an Oscar because of it.