“It was like a diving expedition to the bottom of the ocean, and the need for air at the surface results in a launch that some people in my life are watching, like my sons Holden, Leland and Griffin.” With these allegorical words, which, in fact, describe how whales breathe, Brendan Fraser, holding a gold Oscar statuette, described his return with the film “The Whale” in one sentence yesterday.

The former “Hollywood jester” plunged to the “bottom of the ocean” for 16 years, refraining from the film industry, fought his “demons” and decided to surface, breathe. Today we see him on the surface, but we understand that his journey was dark and rather lonely.

After all, we all remember how we met Brendan Fraser. He was a wizard in the 90s who fought armies of the undead in The Mummy. He swayed from branch to branch in The Jungle Book. Travel the world with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck in Looney Toons: Back in Action. He made a deal with Elizabeth Hurley to play the Devil in Blinded by the Blinded. She showered with Matt Damon in School Ties.

These films quickly brought him fame, wealth and recognition in Hollywood, but did not put him in the category of actors worthy of an Oscar. They put him in the category of actors who will always be invited to the ceremony, but they will be ideal hosts, not candidates.

The ‘out of control’ energy he always displayed on set made him the perfect candidate to play the lost boy in some exotic or otherworldly setting. It was only then that it was. He even stated in his backstage interview that he was definitely naive at the time and that it was clear that he was always playing “the new guy in town who is always trying to fit in”.

16 year old dive to the bottom of the ocean

But how did the “lost boy” on the big screen become the “lost boy” in real life?

“When someone asks me the usual question: “Where have you been?”, I always answer that I was not so far away, and this is true. The roles just got smaller and less physically demanding. There were also less commercial films such as No Sudden Movements, he commented.

But there were two big reasons behind the decision to no longer be the main character. Speaking to GQ in 2018, Frazier said he retired to focus on his family during his divorce from then-wife Afton Smith, as well as health issues, many of which were related to some of his roles.

But there was another, darker reason why Frazier took a step back. As he reported in 2003, he was sexually assaulted by the former president of the Hollywood Reporters Association (HFPA), who invited him to dinner at a hotel in Beverly Hills. “During the handshake, he extended his hand to my buttocks and my mole. I felt sick, hurt,” the actor told GQ in 2018.

This incident was the beginning of a long, almost endless “diving to the bottom” for the actor. While he was in and out of hospitals with serious injuries, he faced an intense and painful legal dispute with his ex-wife, which eventually ended in an out-of-court settlement followed by the death of his mother, which burdened him even more psychologically by causing him shock, grief and depression.

“I moved, went through a divorce. My children were very young then. I went through a period that shapes and shapes you,” he said.

Return to the surface

After spending many years on the dark and inhospitable seabed, Fraser decided to return to the surface again.

In January 2021, it was announced that he would star in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, his first lead role since 2013.

“Now I am in a position where I want to do hard work not only with my body, but also with my mind,” he said at the time. Indeed, the role of Charlie was the most difficult in his life. His transformation into an obese teacher alone required up to six hours a day and 136 kilograms of prostheses.

In addition, he admitted that playing the role of a very obese man taught him that people with similar bodies are unimaginably strong both morally and physically.

truth seeker

“Charlie is much more than gay. He is a father, he is a teacher, he is a seeker of truth. The fact that she fell in love with who she fell in love with is irrelevant. He is the one who found love, lost it and found it again. I think this is something we can all emulate. With perseverance, if you put one foot in front of the other, as Charlie did, you will walk towards the light. Trust me, if I can do it, then so can you,” Frazier said, as if he was talking about himself and not about the role he played.

After all, of course, he could actually talk like Frazier and Charlie. Because his return may be the “resurrection story” that Hollywood loves to share, but it’s definitely more than that.

A person needs not to rest, no matter how many difficulties he experiences. You need to go back to show what you didn’t get to, because then you had other priorities or because life turned out that way. Not because you want to “shut up”, but because you just need to return to the surface to get oxygen. Because you need to forcibly remove the air that has been in your lungs for so long. It is needed so much that a jet is formed. As with whales.

Photo: AP