by Christine Westwood
Big and beautiful, Brendan Fraser’s cartoon-like oversized features, wide eyed naivety and instinct for physical comedy gave him early roles as a thawed-out Neanderthal in Encino Man (1992) and the title role in George of the Jungle (1997), adapted from Jay Ward’s animation series.
Potentially cringe-worthy fare, but Fraser brought an amiable sincerity that became his signature style. We laughed at him but also with him – ‘George! Watch out for that tree!’ He was always far more crafted than his clownish characters appeared on the surface, citing Buster Keaton as a role model.
Fraser’s first acting job was in 1991’s Dogfight, starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. This first outing set the scene for another Fraser signature, his propensity for literally throwing himself into stunts.
He explained to GQ, “I got my Screen Actors Guild card and an extra 50 bucks for the stunt adjustment, because they threw me into a pinball machine,” he recalled. “I think I bruised a rib.”
Paralleling his naive screen presence, Fraser spoke about just trying to turn up, fit in, do his best and probably trying too hard in the process.
By the time he had filmed The Mummy series, three films spanning 1999 to 2008, his injuries had led to multiple surgeries, including knee, vocal chords and spinal procedures of varying severity. He told Entertainment Weekly that he was “fully choked-out,” in the first Mummy film. As he filmed a prison scene that involved a noose, Fraser blacked out. “I regained consciousness and one of the EMTs was saying my name,” he recalled.
In between the stunts and injuries of larger than life George of the Jungle, The Mummy’s intrepid Rick O’Connell or Canadian Mountie Dudley Do-Right (1999), Fraser managed to show his depth and emotional range in a variety of more sophisticated films.
In School Ties (1992), he plays a Jewish scholarship quarterback fighting for his place at an elite boarding school. Holding his own alongside Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Chris O’Donnell, we see him using his striking physical presence as a vehicle for poignant drama. In Gods and Monsters (1998) (below), he played Clayton Boone, a yard man and naive object of romantic lust to Ian McKellen’s ageing director James Whale. He brought a sensitive and intelligent attunement to the role, qualities he would amplify in his astonishing comeback feature The Whale (2022).
Also in 1998, he was chosen by People Magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world and became a top Hollywood draw for over a decade.
Bedazzled (2000) let him showcase a bunch of different characters, from crime lord, poet, rock and roller, author and the nerdy protagonist Elliot, who is seduced by Elizabeth Hurley’s devil into selling his soul. Fraser’s comedic skill is way above the material, and wasted altogether in a Loony Tunes sequel (2003) and the dire MonkeyBone (2001). Fraser’s career was tanking.
“I believe I probably was trying too hard, in a way that’s destructive,” Fraser told GQ. The films, including the last of The Mummy series, were having diminishing returns and causing a physical toll that handicapped Fraser for years.
In a theatre production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (2001), he received critical success for his portrayal of Brick, an alcoholic ex-football player plagued by self-disgust, but his return to Broadway bombed when Elling (2010) closed after one week, due to the lacklustre play rather than any failing in Fraser’s performance.
But it was the truly dreadful Furry Vengeance (2010) that brought him to a crossroads. On a recent Actors Round Table for The Hollywood Reporter, he says of the film: “I think it was the night that I was shooting a scene wherein I was being mauled by a bear and I was in a porta potty and the porta potty got inverted and I was on my head and all this Gatorade and stuff dropped on my head and it made me have a conversation with myself really quick about, ‘Is this worth it? Maybe I should reprioritize myself’.”
Apart from his body and career taking hits throughout 2001-2010, Fraser was shaken by divorces and the death of his mother. There were ugly litigations too. Ex wife Afton Smith sued Fraser for deception over alimony payments. There was an alleged sexual assault case in 2003 that led Fraser to identify with Rose McGowan and others of the #MeToo movement. Emotionally shattered, Fraser was knocked again when he didn’t get cast for Superman Returns (2006). There were more court battles when he sued producer Todd Moyer for promised wages on the delayed William Tell movie. Moyer counter-sued, alleging assault, which Fraser flatly denied.
On the plus side, there was The Quiet American with Michael Caine, and the lead character of Mo, by author/producer Cornelia Funke’s request, in the YA fantasy Inkheart (2008) (below).
In recent years, Fraser has built a solid portfolio of television work. There was Getty family fixer James Fletcher Chace in Trust (2018), Robotman in Titans and spin off Doom Patrol, and gangster Doug Jones in Steven Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move (2021).
Now 53, Fraser has travelled a long way since Airheads (1994) and the like. Always an intelligent actor of depth (he is French speaking and an accomplished photographer and archer), the stars aligned when Darren Aronofsky cast him as morbidly obese teacher Charlie seeking redemption with his daughter in The Whale.
During filming, Fraser carried anywhere from 50 to 300 extra pounds, spending three to five hours in the makeup chair and needing assistance to move around the set. He immersed himself in understanding the disease of obesity, determined to present far more than a cliched view of Charlie’s condition.
In interviews, Fraser has spoken of his immediate connection to the script, and Charlie’s humanity. Aronofsky (Black Swan, Mother, The Wrestler) was inspired to believe he could make the film adaptation of Samuel D. Hunter’s award-winning play when he thought of Fraser after a ten year search for someone who could bring Charlie to realistic life.
The performance is a tour de force, where Fraser draws on all those years of pouring himself into characters great and small, and once more putting his body to the service of the craft in a gruelling transformation. The Whale premiered in Venice to a standing ovation, surely marking a new era in Fraser’s restoration as a unique, gifted and ever likeable actor.
The Whale is in cinemas February 2, 2023
