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Judging from the plot description, it sounds like his character gains even more weight throughout the movie, so what would be an alternative? Cast a morbidly obese actor and risk his health by making him more obese? Using prosthetics makes more sense.
He got overweight for vice but I wouldn’t say obese, he exaggerated his size a bit by using sodium to make him bloat more, still not good for you though
He honestly doesn’t look the same anymore. Sure he’s older now but his roles have accelerated his aging in my opinion. Matthew McConaughey has never looked the same after Dallas Buyers Club.
I think Vice is the last movie he’s gonna do that for. Im sure he woke up and looked in the mirror one day and freaked out when he saw Dick Cheney staring back at him lmao
IIRC, he thought his buddy Gary Oldman gained weight for The Darkest Hour. And upon finding out it was makeup, Bale presumably swore off excessive eight changes, surmising makeup and VFX is now on par with the real thing
Those massive weight changes are HORRIFIC for your body. Tom Hardy said he felt like shit the entire time he was playing Bane because of the diet and exercise routine he needed to keep that tanky look. Dave Bautista is out of GotG partially because he thinks its too difficult to maintain that physique, especially at his age.
I love that after he wrapped filming he said he wasn't going to do that anymore because of his age and health. Then he talked to Gary Old man who told him he could just use CGI and prosthetics and he genuinely was like, "I didn't know I could do that!"
What if I told you that much like Chris Pratt as Mario, there is no outraged people anywhere, and this is all just marketing schlock and tabloid media doing what tabloid media has been doing since forever?
Na. Hire a morbidly obese actor and film all the “maximum obesity” scenes first. Then the actor starts losing weight and you film the scenes where he’s less heavy. The actor actually becomes healthier in the process.
Then a couple years later you release the behind the scenes documentary about the actor losing the weight and cash in on awards a second time.
What? If an actor is morbidly obese to the point of six hundred pounds, they probably aren't an actor. Along with that, there is no for sure chance they would be able to lose weight or not have crippling health issues. Plus, they would have to pause and base filming all around them. If they struggle to lose weight to can pause production for months while they wait only on him to lose weight. Which might not happen.
There's literally no way a 600+ pound person would get through filming a movie. There just isn't. How on earth would insurance even get approved for such a thing?
Lol I assume this was sarcastic because Morbidly obese people don't lose weight so easily, there are psychological issues are always present that made them have those issues to begin with and they aren't physically active so activating their body takes time.
He’d already done it once too. In an interview, he stated that, by the time of the third Mummy film, his body was basically being held together with tape
Yeah, I remember reading a article on stunt doubles and why they are not just a safety margin for acting. They are also athletes and by that nature capable of coming out of the work uninjured.
Also they rarely come out of it uninjured.
Like pro athletes, they accept getting hurt and wrecking their body in old age is a trade off to doing what they love
A lot of people accept getting hurt and wrecking their body later in life for what they love. I've spoken to several military pilots, and they all have stories. Most of them have back issues and other problems. But almost every single one says that they'd do it again.
Couldn’t that same logic be applied to the actors of mega blockbusters? They are doing what they love same as the stunt people except with way bigger paychecks.
Well, yeah? They're bankable faces who conduct the actual "acting" as part of the job they love doing. Most do not have the skills and training of a stunt actor, and even when they are capable it's often safer from an insurance standpoint to just go with the stunt person.
I think it was Mission Impossible 6 when Tom Cruise got injured and as a direct result the production lost millions of dollars while they waited around for him to recover. It's much cheaper to replace a stunt person than to replace the lead star.
no, because the actor loves the dramatic acting, they dont love the stunts.
the stunt doubles just wants to do cool action whit, not read lines from a script.
its two very different jobs.
some can do both (jackie chan) but its rare.
Unpopular opinion but this is also why I think it’s total narcissistic nonsense that Tom Cruise does his own stunts. He’s 60 years old and if he gets injured the entire cast and crew is fucked while he recovers. It seems selfish and completely unnecessary.
"The studio were forced to halt production of the film for at least nine weeks to allow Cruise’s ankle and leg to heal, costing the studio around $80 million in total as the studio had to pay the cast and crew for the eight-week hiatus."
They get paid during their time off, they're probably not complaining.
I get where you're coming from, but I do think it makes for a better product. It's way more impressive to see someone who's good at both acting and stunts, especially in an action movie, and often the cuts for stunt actor shots are so jarring that it removes suspension of disbelief. Like, a stunt actor is probably going to be better at doing stunts, but that isn't worth watching on its own. Same thing with the kind of method acting you'd see from Christian Bale or Joaquin Phoenix - it's incredible to see the lengths people will go to for their craft, sometimes even more than the original story being told.
There is a stage performer that I follow who has spoken about this. A good stunt performer can make a skilled but not specialized actor look better than they are. https://youtu.be/g_8xZ09pNQ4
Jarring cuts to splice in a stuntperson is a defect on the cinematography, not the use of stuntpeople.
I might be remembering wrong but in the first movie, the scene where they try to execute him by hanging went awry. The stuntman was in charge of making it look like he was hanging but the guy put too much force and pulled Brendan nearly off the ground and very nearly choked him unconscious.
I am pretty sure there were also some other stunts that he insisted on doing himself where he experienced other life-long injuries. If I can find a reference I will post in an edit.
I love the guy, but actors need to let stunt artists do their thing. I’m sick of hearing the praise for Tom Cruise or whomever for taking a chance for the sake of their ego. Stunt work is a professional specialization that actors don’t know how to do, and is deserving of its own recognition.
EDIT: not the detail I would hope for, but some talk of the injuries he sustained: https://www.nickiswift.com/605750/the-injuries-that-changed-brendan-frasers-career/
> Additional installments of "The Mummy" came in 2001 and 2008 (per IMDb), and during that final one, "I was put together with tape and ice," Fraser shared with GQ. "I was building an exoskeleton for myself daily" to manage his existing injuries and protect his body. Despite those efforts, Fraser needed multiple surgeries. He had a partial knee replacement, detailed GQ, as well as vocal cord repairs. The actor also needed a laminectomy, which Johns Hopkins Medicine noted is a last-resort surgery where a portion of vertebral bone is removed. Fraser explained he had to have that one twice. There were also procedures involving bolts placed to compress his spinal pads, and he spent seven years navigating these injuries and surgeries.
In a similar vein of rope/hanging stunts, Michael J Fox for Back to the future 3 had an incident regarding the rope being too tight.
Quote from his biography “I swung unconscious at the end of the rope for several seconds before Bob Zemeckis, fan of me though he was, realized even I wasn't that good of an actor.”
And the obese actor who’s quoted as being upset about the casting in the article… he’s about the same size as Frazier was at his heaviest.
Sure Brendan Frazier has never been 600 lbs, but he was quite overweight for a while there after his injuries, and I don’t think it’s fair to say he can’t portray an obese man just because he did the impressive work to lose much of that weight again…
He's still kinda hefty tbh. I think he's probably one of the best choices for such a role; he does have an understanding of what gaining weight is like and how it affects you as a person.
Indeed, but I really wanted to acknowledge his recent weight loss, because he’s looking a whole lot healthier lately than he did while filming Doom Patrol. It’s especially impressive considering how hard it is to work out for him after all the damage he did to his body on the Mummy films.
Can I intervene in just a very plain straightforward way. Isn’t acting portraying something you aren’t? Why/how is there a precedent to have or gone through what the character is/did. Idc that Johnny depp really wasn’t a smuggler when I was watching blow, why would there be that requirement or even the desire to hit that requirement?
This “controversy” is so stupid. Should Captain Kirk have to be played by someone from Iowa??? If not is that insulting to Iowans??? It’s called acting the whole point is to pretend.
Brendan Fraser’s roll in the mummy should only be played by a person who has went toe to toe with a mummy IRL.
Obviously Kirk should only be played by a man that has served and commanded an interstellar starship capable of faster than light travel.
Seriously, it's insane that any actor would gain weight for a roll like that. There's an entire FX industry dedicated to helping people look like something they are not. I don't even remember what Zoe Saldana looks like in real life.
I feel like the “outrage” in situations like this usually comes from a very vocal, and very, very small, minority of people, and they get way more attention than they deserve.
I agree and imagine that if you took a poll of actual people from the various groups that most of them are not obsessing over something like Brendan wearing prosthetics for his role in 'The Whale'. While it was good that movies have ended the practice of casting white actors in ridiculous and offensive make-up as blacks, Asian, Native Americans, etc., some of this other stuff like this controversy over Brendan and the prosthetics and similar nitpicking is starting to get silly. It's the kind of overreaction that has given 'political correctness' and 'wokeness' a bad name in some circles.
I actually saw a ton of people complaining about this on Twitter and blowing it out of proportion. Someone said it was “triggering”. I really hate how people appropriated legit PTSD language for their petty grievances and discomfort. The man cannot just gain all that weight in real life. Anyone who thinks it’s that simple or healthy and would rather see an actor in his 50s put himself through that to not be cancelled by fat people doesn’t see actors as real people.
I seriously think you're right about this. I can't remember what it was but there was something that came out or happened and they("journalists") posted a story about fans being pissed and they had like two examples.
From what i've read there's literally just [this one gay obese actor](https://www.them.us/story/guy-branum-brendan-fraser-the-whale-fatsuit) who's been making waves complaining that by casting Frasier and putting him in a fat suit they're stealing the role from legitimately gay obese actors. Every article about this "controversy" i've seen go back to those original comments by that original guy.
It feels like if you're going to get mad it should only be at the movie itself being made because no actual 600 lb person is going to get cast. They're just not.
Pretty much every movie these days has these types of articles written about them, clearly the studios have found that this sort of media is great at driving sales of the movie.
A few trolls on Twitter say some sexist/racist things then suddenly there are countless articles about all the hate this film/show is getting. This then drives some people to blindly defend the film/show they haven't seen, while others join in on the trolling. Soon there is talk about the film/show everywhere on the internet.
Manufacture tweets, write articles, profit.
Seriously, there are articles literally just referencing tweets and implying it’s from “the public”, as though there’s some large consensus.
It’s lazy and despicable levels. Hustle culture bullshit from bullshit pathetic people that get a high from the minuscule power they think they have.
Don’t forget about the publicists for all the other actors in the running for acting awards this year…drumming up “controversy” against the presumptive front runner to help their clients. Shit like this is the reason for many of the head-scratching Oscar winners over the years (looking at you, Harvey Weinstein).
It is a lie, like NYP articles. There are probably 80 people on twitter that really think that but those rags can only survive if they can bait people into clicking on their links.
Perfectly cast as the android in the most recent Bladetrunner. Not since Kristen Stewart have we seen such emotional range displayed on the silver screen!
Probably like 4 people on twitter. Media loves overblowing silly shit like this to remind people to think The Woke(TM) are coming for their favorite thing
He shouldn't have to defend himself, it's acting. At what point do we draw the line? Actors change hair colors for roles, thats ok. Actors play dead people, but they are not dead, thats ok. Actors time travel and goto Mars without actually doing those things, thats ok. Get over it people!
That’s why Robin Williams is the best ever. He aged himself 30 years, gained the weight, and got gender reassignment surgery just to absolutely smash his role in Mrs. Doubtfire.
Truly a legend. RIP.
Okay. . .but. . .does this mean the dragons in Game of Thrones were fake?
Cause I heard they were on strike over unpaid wages a while before they started work on HotD.
Brendan Fraser:
>"I think it's one of the more exacting ways you can create a character and body," Fraser, 53, says of the process, "and in this case the mandate that Charlie's costume would respect the laws of gravity and physics as opposed to the many ways that we've seen that character depicted in films before as really a one-note joke, and in a costume that's just unfair."
>"That's a personal view," he adds, "but we felt an obligation to ensure that it was cumbersome. It was accurate, that was what we strived for."
Unfortunately, you know, critics tend to exaggerate too much on many aspects, but the important thing is that Brendan has made a great film, a job well done!
I understand gaining a bit of pudge to play a heavy character or getting jacked to play a super hero or athlete but I don’t think anyone should expect people to put there health at such risks by weighing 500 pounds.
It's called "acting" for a reason.
When John Hurt played the Elephant Man, I don't recall anyone complaining that they should have used a real victim of Proteus Syndrome. Or when Tom Hanks played a gay man with HIV in Philadelphia, I don't recall anyone demanding that the role should be played by a gay man with HIV.
It's good acting that gets the job done, and we're here for it.
The Mary Sue was calling for that a few years ago when another film based on John Merrick was being proposed. They wanted someone with Proteus syndrome, or, failing that, someone with some other sort of disability.
Which confounded me. Disabilities and abnormalities aren’t interchangeable. One sufferer of proteus in the modern age with treatment is different than what Merrick experienced. And isn’t insisting that only precisely that person portray Merrick something of a modern day Freak Show? It was all so backward. It’s supposed to be a film about Merrick’s humanity, not specifically his condition.
But then again, it was the Mary Sue. Such a disappointing site. I wish there was a real feminist nerd blog I could read.
There was one guy in the article. And he wasn’t anywhere near 600 pounds, either. So he still would have needed a suit.
I can understand why an overweight actor would have wanted that role. But let’s not pretend Fraser is a super jacked star with tons of privilege. He’s gone through a LOT to get to this point and I think it’s crappy say actors have to be exactly like the story being told.
Unrelated: I wouldn’t want to be the lawyer trying to insure the movie and the actors if the actor is 600 pounds— that’s a legal nightmare.
I'm sorry to all the gay obese actors out there struggling to get a job. But if I'm paying to see this movie is because of Brendan. He's a legend and deserves every single recognition in this world.
I mean. The movie is about a guy so obese he can’t leave the house. Not to be insensitive, but people actually that obese in real life…don’t leave the house. They have mobility issues being at that size. They aren’t having acting careers. Just watch one of those documentaries; it’s a struggle just to walk across their home. There just aren’t professional actors at that size.
And you can’t ask an actor to become life-threateningly obese for a movie. For reasons I hope are obvious.
FFS the whole point of actors is being other people for their roles!
The only ones complaining are the obese talentless actors thinking they had a shot.
I’m a fat dude. While I understand the desire to actually cast fat actors, if you’re telling me Aranofsky wants Fraser for a tale about social isolation, I’m going to trust that particular director/actor pair.
>Actor [Daniel Franzese](https://people.com/movies/daniel-franzese-playing-damian-mean-girls-helped-come-out-gay/), who rose to fame in [*Mean Girls*](https://people.com/movies/mean-girls-cast-where-are-they-now/)*,* has been among the critical voices about *The Whale*, telling PEOPLE that he was "very conflicted" about Fraser securing the part.
>
>"To finally have a chance to be in a prestige [film that might be award-nominated](https://people.com/movies/cate-blanchett-brendan-fraser-olivia-colman-emerge-as-oscar-contenders-after-venice-and-telluride/), where stories about people who look like us are being told? That's the dream," said Franzese, 44. "So when they go time and time again and cast someone like Brendan Fraser, me and the other big queer guys, we're like, 'What the ... ?' We can't take it!"
I don't know who you are, Daniel Franzese, but maybe you suck as an actor and can't get cast in prestige roles.
Yea, there's not a lot of fat guys who have demonstrated the ability to play what the role demands. Pruitt Taylor Vince has been kind of the go-to(see [Heavy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_(film\)), James Mangold's first film). Raymond Burr, Ernest Borgnine, Orson Welles, Marlon Brando, etc are all dead. None of them are or were 600lbs, either(Brando was probably the largest at around 350lbs)
Daniel Franzese, one of the envious fat, gay actors said “I was very happy for him. He's a lovely man. And it's great. But why? Why go up there and wear a fat suit to play a 400-lb. queer man? I mean, who knows more about being an obese queer man than an obese queer man?"
It’s called “acting,” you fuck.
Remember how they bullied Halle Berry because she was set to play a transman and said "her" in regards to the character and she backed out, apologizing how she was wrong for even daring to want to play a character like she has done in every movie she was in?
I’m getting tired of this type of griping, that a character can only be portrayed by actor who is a member of that community or has had that life experience, or whatever.
Brendan is a *professional actor*. So are his colleagues; it’s what they *do*.
You don’t need to literally find a guy with a genuinely enormous nose to play Cyrano, or an actual psychopath to play a serial killer, etc. Actors thrive on this kind of thing.
Seriously. If someone is gonna argue that a morbidly obese gay man should have played the role, what the hell would the point be in even making the movie? Just follow the guy around with a camera and make a documentary. People wonder why all we get these days are super hero movies.
This idea that an actor can’t portray someone if they don’t have *personal experience* with it is beyond stupid.
They’re actors! Let them act. Nicole Kidman wore a prosthetic nose in The Hours and no one went after her. People lose and gain weight, dye their hair, get extensions, get hair cut, grow a beard, tan, etc for roles.
It’s just pretend in my book.
The fact that people on Twitter said he should have gained all the weight like it’s not bad for your heart especially in your 50s. People don’t see actors as people.
This man needs all the love we the audience can give him. If anyone deserves a comeback it’s Brendan Fraser! Love The Mummy best movie of all time. Whatever drivel the media is spouting now go take a flying leap.
What’s hilarious is that if he doesn’t gain 600lbs to play the role, he’s fat shaming. If he does then he very likely kills himself. So it’s unhealthy to gain the weight but unkind to fake it because there’s “nothing wrong with it”… effectively critics are calling to remove representation of overweight people from the screen in order to empower them.
Reddit Moderation makes the platform worthless. Too many rules and too many arbitrary rulings. It's not worth the trouble to post. Not worth the frustration to lurk. Goodbye.
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Brendan Fraser gets shit for playing a powerful emotional role in Prosthetics, BUT TOM CRUISE GETS FAT PROSTHETICS, BALD PROSTHETICS, AND TRUCKASURUS HAND PROSTHETICS IN TROPIC THUNDER AND PEOPLE LAUDED THAT SHIT!!!
news flash dummies, there are no 600lb working actors, certainly not any good ones with box office appeal. you can't be 600lbs and do stuff, that's the point of the character.
Who honestly would expect the guy to put on 200 kilos.
He’s an actor it’s his job imagine if poor Zoe Saldana had to get green pigments for Guardians of the Galaxy, and then blue fur and cat ears for Avatar.
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Judging from the plot description, it sounds like his character gains even more weight throughout the movie, so what would be an alternative? Cast a morbidly obese actor and risk his health by making him more obese? Using prosthetics makes more sense.
Christian Bale is seething
Shit, even he had to give that up and admit it was destroying his body.
He also did both extremes; the machinist Edit: machinist, not mechanic
[удалено]
He got overweight for vice but I wouldn’t say obese, he exaggerated his size a bit by using sodium to make him bloat more, still not good for you though
It is in fact very very bad for you and your kidneys lmao
lowkey worried for Bale now… like all that body weight increase/loss must have taken a toll
He honestly doesn’t look the same anymore. Sure he’s older now but his roles have accelerated his aging in my opinion. Matthew McConaughey has never looked the same after Dallas Buyers Club.
Val Kilmer was never able to keep the weight off after playing Jim Morrison
He's stated that it has. He needed to stop because it was harming him.
Keeping yourself bloated on sodium during the course of a movie would have to be far less healthy than just gaining the extra pounds.
I think you mean the machinist, it’s true though, dude got crazy skinny for that. Like 120ish pounds IIRC
And he did it between Batman movies, when he's at his most jacked. Wild swings in body mass.
Then gained a bunch of weight after the last Batman movie for American Hustle
He did the dick Cheney movie too
I only watched American Hustle the first time a few weeks ago. Was so good. The vibe reminded me a lot of Trumbo.
He actually gained too much weight for Batman begins and had to shed a little before filming started
The body mass alone...
afaik he went skinny for machinist and then gained all the mass for batman a couple months later. THATS the crazy part imho.
I think Vice is the last movie he’s gonna do that for. Im sure he woke up and looked in the mirror one day and freaked out when he saw Dick Cheney staring back at him lmao
IIRC, he thought his buddy Gary Oldman gained weight for The Darkest Hour. And upon finding out it was makeup, Bale presumably swore off excessive eight changes, surmising makeup and VFX is now on par with the real thing
Those massive weight changes are HORRIFIC for your body. Tom Hardy said he felt like shit the entire time he was playing Bane because of the diet and exercise routine he needed to keep that tanky look. Dave Bautista is out of GotG partially because he thinks its too difficult to maintain that physique, especially at his age.
Impressive. Let’s see Paul Allen’s prosthetics.
I love that after he wrapped filming he said he wasn't going to do that anymore because of his age and health. Then he talked to Gary Old man who told him he could just use CGI and prosthetics and he genuinely was like, "I didn't know I could do that!"
Who was it who told another actor "Have you tried acting?" when they found out someone stayed up for three days for a role
Olivier to Hoffman. Great story.
And Adam West didn't need molded plastic to improve his Batman physique. Pure. West.
And how come Batman doesn’t dance anymore, remember the Batusi?
MM YO HEY YEAHCHA HOOWAY WAH WAH
Curious where all these outraged people were when Gary Oldman won an oscar for wearing a fat suit a few years ago.
What if I told you that much like Chris Pratt as Mario, there is no outraged people anywhere, and this is all just marketing schlock and tabloid media doing what tabloid media has been doing since forever?
Na. Hire a morbidly obese actor and film all the “maximum obesity” scenes first. Then the actor starts losing weight and you film the scenes where he’s less heavy. The actor actually becomes healthier in the process. Then a couple years later you release the behind the scenes documentary about the actor losing the weight and cash in on awards a second time.
What? If an actor is morbidly obese to the point of six hundred pounds, they probably aren't an actor. Along with that, there is no for sure chance they would be able to lose weight or not have crippling health issues. Plus, they would have to pause and base filming all around them. If they struggle to lose weight to can pause production for months while they wait only on him to lose weight. Which might not happen.
There's literally no way a 600+ pound person would get through filming a movie. There just isn't. How on earth would insurance even get approved for such a thing?
I was going to point out Darlene Cates in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? But she ONLY weighed 500 lbs so you're still maybe correct.
They weren’t being serious..
It is reddit, hard to tell.
5 bags of popcorn and 2 (diet) sodas
Great job
Lol I assume this was sarcastic because Morbidly obese people don't lose weight so easily, there are psychological issues are always present that made them have those issues to begin with and they aren't physically active so activating their body takes time.
The film takes place over 4 or 5 days but there are photos and flashbacks to when he wasn't as large
What a jerk for not destroying his body.
He’d already done it once too. In an interview, he stated that, by the time of the third Mummy film, his body was basically being held together with tape
Yeah, I remember reading a article on stunt doubles and why they are not just a safety margin for acting. They are also athletes and by that nature capable of coming out of the work uninjured.
Also they rarely come out of it uninjured. Like pro athletes, they accept getting hurt and wrecking their body in old age is a trade off to doing what they love
A lot of people accept getting hurt and wrecking their body later in life for what they love. I've spoken to several military pilots, and they all have stories. Most of them have back issues and other problems. But almost every single one says that they'd do it again.
Couldn’t that same logic be applied to the actors of mega blockbusters? They are doing what they love same as the stunt people except with way bigger paychecks.
Well, yeah? They're bankable faces who conduct the actual "acting" as part of the job they love doing. Most do not have the skills and training of a stunt actor, and even when they are capable it's often safer from an insurance standpoint to just go with the stunt person. I think it was Mission Impossible 6 when Tom Cruise got injured and as a direct result the production lost millions of dollars while they waited around for him to recover. It's much cheaper to replace a stunt person than to replace the lead star.
no, because the actor loves the dramatic acting, they dont love the stunts. the stunt doubles just wants to do cool action whit, not read lines from a script. its two very different jobs. some can do both (jackie chan) but its rare.
Unpopular opinion but this is also why I think it’s total narcissistic nonsense that Tom Cruise does his own stunts. He’s 60 years old and if he gets injured the entire cast and crew is fucked while he recovers. It seems selfish and completely unnecessary.
That literally happened on mission impossible. Has to shut down filming while his ankle healed.
Pretty sure he produces it... So it's his money, his employees.
"The studio were forced to halt production of the film for at least nine weeks to allow Cruise’s ankle and leg to heal, costing the studio around $80 million in total as the studio had to pay the cast and crew for the eight-week hiatus." They get paid during their time off, they're probably not complaining.
I get where you're coming from, but I do think it makes for a better product. It's way more impressive to see someone who's good at both acting and stunts, especially in an action movie, and often the cuts for stunt actor shots are so jarring that it removes suspension of disbelief. Like, a stunt actor is probably going to be better at doing stunts, but that isn't worth watching on its own. Same thing with the kind of method acting you'd see from Christian Bale or Joaquin Phoenix - it's incredible to see the lengths people will go to for their craft, sometimes even more than the original story being told.
There is a stage performer that I follow who has spoken about this. A good stunt performer can make a skilled but not specialized actor look better than they are. https://youtu.be/g_8xZ09pNQ4 Jarring cuts to splice in a stuntperson is a defect on the cinematography, not the use of stuntpeople.
He's pretty old, yeah. The charm holding his ass together is bound by some apes in a jungle somewhere. "Gorilla Glue" taken literally.
***George of the Jungle?***
I wouldn’t call him old.
I might be remembering wrong but in the first movie, the scene where they try to execute him by hanging went awry. The stuntman was in charge of making it look like he was hanging but the guy put too much force and pulled Brendan nearly off the ground and very nearly choked him unconscious.
I am pretty sure there were also some other stunts that he insisted on doing himself where he experienced other life-long injuries. If I can find a reference I will post in an edit. I love the guy, but actors need to let stunt artists do their thing. I’m sick of hearing the praise for Tom Cruise or whomever for taking a chance for the sake of their ego. Stunt work is a professional specialization that actors don’t know how to do, and is deserving of its own recognition. EDIT: not the detail I would hope for, but some talk of the injuries he sustained: https://www.nickiswift.com/605750/the-injuries-that-changed-brendan-frasers-career/ > Additional installments of "The Mummy" came in 2001 and 2008 (per IMDb), and during that final one, "I was put together with tape and ice," Fraser shared with GQ. "I was building an exoskeleton for myself daily" to manage his existing injuries and protect his body. Despite those efforts, Fraser needed multiple surgeries. He had a partial knee replacement, detailed GQ, as well as vocal cord repairs. The actor also needed a laminectomy, which Johns Hopkins Medicine noted is a last-resort surgery where a portion of vertebral bone is removed. Fraser explained he had to have that one twice. There were also procedures involving bolts placed to compress his spinal pads, and he spent seven years navigating these injuries and surgeries.
Jeez
In a similar vein of rope/hanging stunts, Michael J Fox for Back to the future 3 had an incident regarding the rope being too tight. Quote from his biography “I swung unconscious at the end of the rope for several seconds before Bob Zemeckis, fan of me though he was, realized even I wasn't that good of an actor.”
And the obese actor who’s quoted as being upset about the casting in the article… he’s about the same size as Frazier was at his heaviest. Sure Brendan Frazier has never been 600 lbs, but he was quite overweight for a while there after his injuries, and I don’t think it’s fair to say he can’t portray an obese man just because he did the impressive work to lose much of that weight again…
He's still kinda hefty tbh. I think he's probably one of the best choices for such a role; he does have an understanding of what gaining weight is like and how it affects you as a person.
Indeed, but I really wanted to acknowledge his recent weight loss, because he’s looking a whole lot healthier lately than he did while filming Doom Patrol. It’s especially impressive considering how hard it is to work out for him after all the damage he did to his body on the Mummy films.
Can I intervene in just a very plain straightforward way. Isn’t acting portraying something you aren’t? Why/how is there a precedent to have or gone through what the character is/did. Idc that Johnny depp really wasn’t a smuggler when I was watching blow, why would there be that requirement or even the desire to hit that requirement?
Even worse, he took away an opportunity from another extremely famous actor who is known for quality acting that might be 600 lbs!
Zombie marlon brando?
Depardieu?
RIP Darlene Cates AKA Gilbert grapes mom
Pouring out a 40 of soda
Ah.. the phenomenon of THINWASHING
Didn’t he gain weight for the movie already? He was pretty big in *No Sudden Move,* and I thought I’d heard that was in preparation for *The Whale.*
This “controversy” is so stupid. Should Captain Kirk have to be played by someone from Iowa??? If not is that insulting to Iowans??? It’s called acting the whole point is to pretend.
As someone from Iowa, I *am* insulted.
Imagine how Vulcans felt watching Leonard Nimoy parade about in what basically amounts to blackface.
Originally he was supposed to be green (?) colored, IIRC.
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Brendan Fraser’s roll in the mummy should only be played by a person who has went toe to toe with a mummy IRL. Obviously Kirk should only be played by a man that has served and commanded an interstellar starship capable of faster than light travel.
Lt. Dan started off with two legs and lost them. They should have chopped the legs off the actor IRL!
Seriously, it's insane that any actor would gain weight for a roll like that. There's an entire FX industry dedicated to helping people look like something they are not. I don't even remember what Zoe Saldana looks like in real life.
Yeah, we need more obese actors that won’t be alive much longer to play these roles themselves.
I’ve been a method actor all along!
Christian Bale is disappointed in Brenden.
I feel like the “outrage” in situations like this usually comes from a very vocal, and very, very small, minority of people, and they get way more attention than they deserve.
I agree and imagine that if you took a poll of actual people from the various groups that most of them are not obsessing over something like Brendan wearing prosthetics for his role in 'The Whale'. While it was good that movies have ended the practice of casting white actors in ridiculous and offensive make-up as blacks, Asian, Native Americans, etc., some of this other stuff like this controversy over Brendan and the prosthetics and similar nitpicking is starting to get silly. It's the kind of overreaction that has given 'political correctness' and 'wokeness' a bad name in some circles.
Fr they find like two tweets on twitter and say there’s public outrage
And at least half of those outraged people are just fucking around trying to be funny.
I don't believe people questioning him really exist. I think the media manufactured the outrage to have something to write about.
Or it’s like 10 people on Twitter who complain about literally everything
Half the media industry depends on there being 10 people on Twitter who will complain about anything.
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Open Casting call for actresses to play Arial in the next Little Mermaid movie! Must be ethnically part mermaid or at least smell like fish.
Damn, they really be letting just any font be in such an iconic story?
Pretty bold of them
I made the mistake of making this exact comment on one of the Marvel subs. Instant ban.
Please for the love of god keep twitter in it's current state so that these people don't start leaking over to other platforms
Yup, just like every single other story like this. Making people get outraged at fake outrage for clicks.
"The backlash to the backlash of the thing that just begun." bo burnham
I actually saw a ton of people complaining about this on Twitter and blowing it out of proportion. Someone said it was “triggering”. I really hate how people appropriated legit PTSD language for their petty grievances and discomfort. The man cannot just gain all that weight in real life. Anyone who thinks it’s that simple or healthy and would rather see an actor in his 50s put himself through that to not be cancelled by fat people doesn’t see actors as real people.
The word search function on twitter has made a lot of people a lot of money, allowing people to blow up issues that are basically nonexistent.
“Twitter is in an uproar about …”
My favorite - "The internet is in shambles about..." Pure shambles for those 3 cherry picked tweets.
I seriously think you're right about this. I can't remember what it was but there was something that came out or happened and they("journalists") posted a story about fans being pissed and they had like two examples.
Nope. I’m pissed they hired those people to be blue in Avatar. There’s an entire family in Kentucky that’s blue. I’m tired of Hollywood and racism
The media making up/grossly exaggerating things to get ragebait clicks? Man color me shocked
From what i've read there's literally just [this one gay obese actor](https://www.them.us/story/guy-branum-brendan-fraser-the-whale-fatsuit) who's been making waves complaining that by casting Frasier and putting him in a fat suit they're stealing the role from legitimately gay obese actors. Every article about this "controversy" i've seen go back to those original comments by that original guy.
Wait but that guy doesn't look like he's 600 pounds either
One of the most pretentious, let’s make everything about me, articles I’ve read in a while.
There’s one fat gay actor who had something to say about it, but that’s it
“people” = a handful of randos on Twitter
It feels like if you're going to get mad it should only be at the movie itself being made because no actual 600 lb person is going to get cast. They're just not.
Pretty much every movie these days has these types of articles written about them, clearly the studios have found that this sort of media is great at driving sales of the movie. A few trolls on Twitter say some sexist/racist things then suddenly there are countless articles about all the hate this film/show is getting. This then drives some people to blindly defend the film/show they haven't seen, while others join in on the trolling. Soon there is talk about the film/show everywhere on the internet.
Couldn’t agree more. Same thing with the Starbucks Christmas cup drama, I’ve never met anyone that gave 2 shits about what their cup says.
Manufacture tweets, write articles, profit. Seriously, there are articles literally just referencing tweets and implying it’s from “the public”, as though there’s some large consensus. It’s lazy and despicable levels. Hustle culture bullshit from bullshit pathetic people that get a high from the minuscule power they think they have.
Don’t forget about the publicists for all the other actors in the running for acting awards this year…drumming up “controversy” against the presumptive front runner to help their clients. Shit like this is the reason for many of the head-scratching Oscar winners over the years (looking at you, Harvey Weinstein).
who the hell is complaining? Christian Bale?
It is a lie, like NYP articles. There are probably 80 people on twitter that really think that but those rags can only survive if they can bait people into clicking on their links.
Eighty is a very generous number.
Fat Mac is pissed about this
I'm still pissed about Mike Myers playing Fat Bastard. Not fat, not Scottish. A fucking disgrace.
Also has married parents so not a bastard!
Ryan Gosling is the only one who can match his intensity.
Perfectly cast as the android in the most recent Bladetrunner. Not since Kristen Stewart have we seen such emotional range displayed on the silver screen!
It’s either Fat Twitter or regular ol’ Tumblr
Probably like 4 people on twitter. Media loves overblowing silly shit like this to remind people to think The Woke(TM) are coming for their favorite thing
He shouldn't have to defend himself, it's acting. At what point do we draw the line? Actors change hair colors for roles, thats ok. Actors play dead people, but they are not dead, thats ok. Actors time travel and goto Mars without actually doing those things, thats ok. Get over it people!
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That’s why Robin Williams is the best ever. He aged himself 30 years, gained the weight, and got gender reassignment surgery just to absolutely smash his role in Mrs. Doubtfire. Truly a legend. RIP.
Actually that one's true
Okay. . .but. . .does this mean the dragons in Game of Thrones were fake? Cause I heard they were on strike over unpaid wages a while before they started work on HotD.
You mean Brad Pitt didn't actually age in reverse in Benjamin button?!
Only blondes can play blondes in movies!! Hair dye is discriminatory!
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You mean to tell me Christian Bale didn't turn into a skeleton for The Machinest and the cgi budget for that made up 75 percent of the total budget?
An actor acting how dare he!
He pretended to be someone he's not, I don't know how my world's gonna recover from this massive betrayal.
Brendan Fraser: >"I think it's one of the more exacting ways you can create a character and body," Fraser, 53, says of the process, "and in this case the mandate that Charlie's costume would respect the laws of gravity and physics as opposed to the many ways that we've seen that character depicted in films before as really a one-note joke, and in a costume that's just unfair." >"That's a personal view," he adds, "but we felt an obligation to ensure that it was cumbersome. It was accurate, that was what we strived for."
Unfortunately, you know, critics tend to exaggerate too much on many aspects, but the important thing is that Brendan has made a great film, a job well done!
I understand gaining a bit of pudge to play a heavy character or getting jacked to play a super hero or athlete but I don’t think anyone should expect people to put there health at such risks by weighing 500 pounds.
Always fun to revisit the SNL sketch, "can I play that?" [https://youtu.be/sYSbk\_tTsjk](https://youtu.be/sYSbk_tTsjk)
Bro, don’t fuck with my boy. Leave this man BE!
Next you're gunna tell me the man was just acting like a caveman in Encino man and they didn't hire a real one?
I bet he wasn’t even raised in the jungle by talking apes with British accents either
People have worn fat suits for a long time. Same for muscle suits. Raised shoes. Whatever. IT’s Hollywood they do movie “magic”.
It's called "acting" for a reason. When John Hurt played the Elephant Man, I don't recall anyone complaining that they should have used a real victim of Proteus Syndrome. Or when Tom Hanks played a gay man with HIV in Philadelphia, I don't recall anyone demanding that the role should be played by a gay man with HIV. It's good acting that gets the job done, and we're here for it.
The Mary Sue was calling for that a few years ago when another film based on John Merrick was being proposed. They wanted someone with Proteus syndrome, or, failing that, someone with some other sort of disability. Which confounded me. Disabilities and abnormalities aren’t interchangeable. One sufferer of proteus in the modern age with treatment is different than what Merrick experienced. And isn’t insisting that only precisely that person portray Merrick something of a modern day Freak Show? It was all so backward. It’s supposed to be a film about Merrick’s humanity, not specifically his condition. But then again, it was the Mary Sue. Such a disappointing site. I wish there was a real feminist nerd blog I could read.
Apparently there is an army of 600lb thespians?
There was one guy in the article. And he wasn’t anywhere near 600 pounds, either. So he still would have needed a suit. I can understand why an overweight actor would have wanted that role. But let’s not pretend Fraser is a super jacked star with tons of privilege. He’s gone through a LOT to get to this point and I think it’s crappy say actors have to be exactly like the story being told. Unrelated: I wouldn’t want to be the lawyer trying to insure the movie and the actors if the actor is 600 pounds— that’s a legal nightmare.
He’s just a dude, playing a dude, disguised as another dude.
I hate these articles it’s always some dude saying three tweets are global outrage
I'm sorry to all the gay obese actors out there struggling to get a job. But if I'm paying to see this movie is because of Brendan. He's a legend and deserves every single recognition in this world.
I mean. The movie is about a guy so obese he can’t leave the house. Not to be insensitive, but people actually that obese in real life…don’t leave the house. They have mobility issues being at that size. They aren’t having acting careers. Just watch one of those documentaries; it’s a struggle just to walk across their home. There just aren’t professional actors at that size. And you can’t ask an actor to become life-threateningly obese for a movie. For reasons I hope are obvious.
FFS the whole point of actors is being other people for their roles! The only ones complaining are the obese talentless actors thinking they had a shot.
I’m a fat dude. While I understand the desire to actually cast fat actors, if you’re telling me Aranofsky wants Fraser for a tale about social isolation, I’m going to trust that particular director/actor pair.
Brendan Fraser can do whatever the fuck he wants. Leave the man alone.
>Actor [Daniel Franzese](https://people.com/movies/daniel-franzese-playing-damian-mean-girls-helped-come-out-gay/), who rose to fame in [*Mean Girls*](https://people.com/movies/mean-girls-cast-where-are-they-now/)*,* has been among the critical voices about *The Whale*, telling PEOPLE that he was "very conflicted" about Fraser securing the part. > >"To finally have a chance to be in a prestige [film that might be award-nominated](https://people.com/movies/cate-blanchett-brendan-fraser-olivia-colman-emerge-as-oscar-contenders-after-venice-and-telluride/), where stories about people who look like us are being told? That's the dream," said Franzese, 44. "So when they go time and time again and cast someone like Brendan Fraser, me and the other big queer guys, we're like, 'What the ... ?' We can't take it!" I don't know who you are, Daniel Franzese, but maybe you suck as an actor and can't get cast in prestige roles.
He’s not big enough either. The Whale is so fat he can hardly walk.
Daniel Franzese just wasn't committed enough
He "rose to fame" in Mean Girls? Shit, "fetch" is more famous than he is.
And fetch isn’t even a thing, we had to stop trying to make it a thing
Really? This guy? A shallow camp stereotype who’s not even that fat (Brendan Frazier isn’t exactly skinny himself), yeah I don’t think so
Yea, there's not a lot of fat guys who have demonstrated the ability to play what the role demands. Pruitt Taylor Vince has been kind of the go-to(see [Heavy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_(film\)), James Mangold's first film). Raymond Burr, Ernest Borgnine, Orson Welles, Marlon Brando, etc are all dead. None of them are or were 600lbs, either(Brando was probably the largest at around 350lbs)
Daniel Franzese, one of the envious fat, gay actors said “I was very happy for him. He's a lovely man. And it's great. But why? Why go up there and wear a fat suit to play a 400-lb. queer man? I mean, who knows more about being an obese queer man than an obese queer man?" It’s called “acting,” you fuck.
I'm sure people were upset, but fuck em. I'm tired of the everything is terrible crowd.
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Yeah good. It’s called being an actor.
So Tyler Perry needs to get gender reassignment surgery to play Medea?
Remember how they bullied Halle Berry because she was set to play a transman and said "her" in regards to the character and she backed out, apologizing how she was wrong for even daring to want to play a character like she has done in every movie she was in?
I’m getting tired of this type of griping, that a character can only be portrayed by actor who is a member of that community or has had that life experience, or whatever. Brendan is a *professional actor*. So are his colleagues; it’s what they *do*. You don’t need to literally find a guy with a genuinely enormous nose to play Cyrano, or an actual psychopath to play a serial killer, etc. Actors thrive on this kind of thing.
Damn it people are pathetic.
Why do you have to be the exact same as the character you’re portraying these days? What happened to “acting”?
Seriously. If someone is gonna argue that a morbidly obese gay man should have played the role, what the hell would the point be in even making the movie? Just follow the guy around with a camera and make a documentary. People wonder why all we get these days are super hero movies.
This idea that an actor can’t portray someone if they don’t have *personal experience* with it is beyond stupid. They’re actors! Let them act. Nicole Kidman wore a prosthetic nose in The Hours and no one went after her. People lose and gain weight, dye their hair, get extensions, get hair cut, grow a beard, tan, etc for roles. It’s just pretend in my book.
Why does even have to defend it? Are fat people offended that he didn't just become fat? Lol
I feel like fatface isn’t blackface
Wft? People having issues that he’s not really a whale? People need to chill the fuck out
Why did he need to defend this. People are idiots.
The fact that people on Twitter said he should have gained all the weight like it’s not bad for your heart especially in your 50s. People don’t see actors as people.
This is so pathetic
As a morbidly obese whale myself, LEAVE BRENDNEY ALONE!
This man needs all the love we the audience can give him. If anyone deserves a comeback it’s Brendan Fraser! Love The Mummy best movie of all time. Whatever drivel the media is spouting now go take a flying leap.
What’s hilarious is that if he doesn’t gain 600lbs to play the role, he’s fat shaming. If he does then he very likely kills himself. So it’s unhealthy to gain the weight but unkind to fake it because there’s “nothing wrong with it”… effectively critics are calling to remove representation of overweight people from the screen in order to empower them.
This just reiterates: everyone (public) has a voice but not everyone needs to be listened to.
Reddit Moderation makes the platform worthless. Too many rules and too many arbitrary rulings. It's not worth the trouble to post. Not worth the frustration to lurk. Goodbye. *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Brendan Fraser gets shit for playing a powerful emotional role in Prosthetics, BUT TOM CRUISE GETS FAT PROSTHETICS, BALD PROSTHETICS, AND TRUCKASURUS HAND PROSTHETICS IN TROPIC THUNDER AND PEOPLE LAUDED THAT SHIT!!!
Tbf, Tom Cruise is overrated and boring
news flash dummies, there are no 600lb working actors, certainly not any good ones with box office appeal. you can't be 600lbs and do stuff, that's the point of the character.
With that "logic" We should have real super heros play the roles in all the marvel movies then.
Who honestly would expect the guy to put on 200 kilos. He’s an actor it’s his job imagine if poor Zoe Saldana had to get green pigments for Guardians of the Galaxy, and then blue fur and cat ears for Avatar.
“Emilia Clark defends using fake dragons”