On June 18, during the celebration of the Tribeca Film Festival, social networks were filled with images of Brendan Fraser (Indiana, 52 years old).
The American actor had attended the festival to present his new film
No Sudden Move
, a
thriller
set in the 1950s, directed by Steven Soderbergh, in which he stars alongside Benicio del Toro, Jon Hamm and Don Cheadle.
The most repeated comments on the networks, which on the other hand, have always shown great affection for the interpreter, focused on his physical appearance. "What happened to Brendan Fraser?" was the question that was repeated in hundreds of tweets and publications. In the pictures, the actor, whom everyone remembers for his roles as a
90s
sex symbol
in hit comedies
George of the Jungle
or dramas like
Gods and monsters
(where he also showed that he was a great actor), was seen obviously overweight and strangely stiff.
In a matter of minutes, dozens of tabloid media began to publish articles with headlines strewn with
click catchers
that alluded to the actor's overweight, which was due - they explained - to the fact that he had recently finished shooting a new film in which he is the protagonist. This is
The Whale
, a film directed by Darren Aronofsky (
Requiem for a Dream
,
Black Swan
), in which he plays a literature teacher who, weighing more than 270 kilos, lives trapped on his sofa while trying to recover the relationship with her 17-year-old daughter.
"It has nothing to do with anything I've done before," Fraser told
Newsweek
just a few days ago
, "but I can say, although I haven't seen it yet, it's going to make a big impression."
Although the actor did not have to gain weight to over 250 kilos - this is achieved in the film thanks to the magic of prosthetics -, he did have to increase significantly in weight, a completely new practice that has already garnered great criticism and awards. to interpreters such as Robert de Niro or Antonio de la Torre.
Brendan Fraser, a '90s action comedy hero, photographed in 2003.Steve Granitz / WireImage
But this time, beyond the claim for clicks with the familiar headline "You won't believe how Brendan Fraser looks like now", this reappearance is celebrated for confirming the return to quality cinema of an actor who, although he has continued to work in minor productions and television series, many had long ago given up for disappeared.
Brendan Fraser, the trendy guy
There was a time, between the late 1990s and early 2000s, when it was common to see Fraser's face on posters posted at the entrance to multiplex cinemas and bus stops around the world.
His youth comedies and adventure films (such as
The Mummy
) raised hundreds of millions of dollars. But less well known is that his career, which had started a few years earlier, was about to take a completely different direction. Fraser, who became interested in acting as a teenager while attending a performance in London's West End while on vacation, graduated in theater from the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle in 1990. The following year, he was supposed to study. a Master of Fine Arts, with a specialty of acting, at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, but on the way to his destination, he made a small stop in Los Angeles that changed everything.
Fraser decided to try his luck at auditions. He was selected to play 'Sailor 1' in
Love is a cruel game
, a film starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. It was a non-dialogue role in which his only job was to take a beating. “They gave the uniform to me and a few others and we had to participate in a fight with some marines,” he recalled in an interview with the US edition of
GQ
in 2018. “I won the actors union card and 50 bucks for make a stunt scene as I was thrown at a
pinball
machine
. I think I broke a rib, but I was like, 'I'm fine! Let me do it again. If you want, I'll tear it to pieces. Do you want me to do it again?
In addition to breaking a bone, that small role, thanks also to his youth, his beauty and a strange look between clean, sexy and clueless, brought him another role that is more relevant in the film
The Man from California
, a youth comedy. Now considered cult, in which he played a prehistoric man resurrected in the Los Angeles of the nineties, full of pool parties and high school messes, after spending thousands of years frozen in a block of ice.
Brendan Fraser photographed in June 2021 in New York.
Her weight shift, unlike other stars who fill tabloid covers and pink magazine links, is due to her preparation for the starring role in Darren Aronofsky's latest film, 'The Whale.' Jim Spellman / WireImage,
That role opened the doors to Hollywood, although mainly for young adult comedies. In those years he appeared in films such as
Airheads
,
With honors
or
George of the Jungle
, although he also made forays into somewhat more serious films such as
Private School
, along with some still unknown Matt Damon and Ben Affleck; or
Gods and monsters
, a film in which he shared the screen with Ian McKellen and which won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. But even in these more serious roles, his physical attractiveness played a significant role in the plot. "I see myself then and think of a walking piece of meat," lamented the actor.
Between 1997 and 2003, Fraser's career went like a shot: he released between two and three films a year and many of them became real box office successes such as
The Mummy
,
Dudley of the Mountain
or
Looney Tunes: Back in Action
. His work rate was brutal and the actor's body began to suffer. "I think I was trying too hard, in a destructive way for me," he said. The injuries, caused because on many occasions he carried out the risk scenes himself, together with the stress of work, began to take their toll. However, the actor still felt on the crest of the wave and looked ahead with optimism. "I know that I will have many opportunities in the future, I just hope I know how to choose well," he declared during a European tour promoting
La Mummy
. What he did not know then was that this bright future had a few very unpleasant surprises in store for him.
In fact, in this same interview that he gave to
GQ
magazine in 2018
, the actor decided to reveal something that happened during that apparently triumphant year 2003 and that, in part, was the cause of Fraser gradually moving away from the front row of public opinion.
The Beverly Hills Incident
It all happened at the Beverly Hills Hotel, after a luncheon organized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which organizes the Golden Globes every year. After lunch, Fraser was leaving the hotel when he crossed paths with Philip Berk, the president of the association, who, in front of a large group of people, shook his hand and took the opportunity to pinch his butt. “His left hand reaches out, grabs my buttock and one of his fingers touches my perineum. And it starts moving it, ”Fraser explained. "I got sick. I felt like a child with a lump in my throat. I thought I was going to cry. It was as if someone had thrown invisible paint on me ”. The actor went home in a hurry, terrified, and there he told his wife,But he decided not to press charges against Berk, fearing that the complaint would make him relive the ordeal.
Berk assured
GQ
, in the same article, that Fraser had made up the story.
But Fraser could not forget it and his anguish ended up leading to a depression.
"It made me back down, it made me confine myself," the actor confessed.
It took fifteen years for Fraser to decide to go public, in line with the #MeToo movement, when many of her colleagues took a step forward and denounced the abuse and harassment they had suffered throughout their careers at the hands of film producer Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men in the industry.
Philip Berk has remained linked to the HFPA until this year, although he is now 88 years old, and has never admitted the facts. Only a couple of months ago, however, he was permanently expelled from the association after leaking an email that he sent to its members calling Black Lives Matter a "movement of racial hatred" and criticizing one of its founders, Patrisse Cullors, for buying a home in the exclusive Topanga Canyon region of California.
Fraser's depression was compounded by the effects of all his physical injuries, which forced him to undergo multiple operations over the years; the 2009 divorce from his wife, to whom he had been married for 21 years, and a feeling, which was never confirmed, that Berk and his important association were doing everything possible to boycott his career. What is undeniable is that they stopped inviting him to the Golden Globes, and the
The Mummy
and
Journey to the Center of the Earth
franchises
continued without his participation.
It is true that Fraser never stopped working, but in much more modest productions, and his name was lost in the memory of the general public until in 2016 he was signed to play the melancholic prison official John Gunther in the series
The Affair
.
Despite being a secondary role and being present for only one season, that was the first time in many years that Fraser acted in a massive audiovisual product and his return was celebrated in some media, even the concept of
Brenaissance
, a game of words between Brendan's name and the word "rebirth" in French.
Since then, and after the confession in 2018 of the sexual abuse he suffered, Fraser has been showing more and more;
playing supporting roles in different television series such as
Trust
,
Titans
or
Doom Patrol
.
The roles that Fraser has played in
No Sudden Move
and
The Whale
are a far cry from those of his mindless' 90s comedies.
They are more like the work of a man who knows what is seclusion, loneliness and suffering.
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