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Topics: Brendan Fraser, TV and Film
Stewart Perrie
Topics: Brendan Fraser, TV and Film
Brendan Fraser says the days of being lean and ripped for a role is likely behind him.
The actor's latest character is a far cry away from his George of the Jungle era and it seems like the 54-year-old is content with that.
When Fraser starred in the iconic 1997 film, his character was constantly shirtless as he was meant to be a 'superhuman primate that rules the jungle'.
Fast forward 25 years and Fraser is now playing a man called Charlie in The Whale, who is a reclusive 600 pound man.
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The two characters, at least in an aesthetic perspective, couldn't be more different.
In an interview with The Telegraph, the actor says: "I’m older now; I don’t look the way I did in those days, and I don’t necessarily want to.
"But I’ve made peace with who I am now.
"And I’m glad that the work I can do is based in an emotional reality that’s not my own life, but is one that I can strongly identify with.”
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Fraser has previously admitted the diet he had to maintain for George of the Jungle left him with a fuzzy memory.
His costume in the film was merely a loin cloth and he was starved of carbohydrates to achieve that toned physique.
In Variety’s ‘Actors on Actors’ series, Fraser said: “I would drive home after work and stop to get something to eat.
"I needed some cash one day, and I went to the ATM, and I couldn’t remember my PIN number because my brain was misfiring. Banging on the thing. I didn’t eat that night.”
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He explained in his interview with The Telegraph: “It made sense that I had to look like that if all they were giving me to put on was a butt flap."
But now he's gone the other way for The Whale.
While he didn't have to pile on hundreds of pounds of weight to accurately portray the role, he's done a hell of a lot of research into how obese people move and feel.
He insisted on breaking out of the way actors have portrayed overweight characters in other movies.
"[It] was all in service of authenticity, not the one-note joke these bodies have been in the past in broad comedies," he said to The Telegraph.
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"I found it helpful, honestly, that it was so cumbersome. I learned that Charlie had to be an incredibly strong man to carry around that body, which I thought was kind of poetic.”
His performance in The Whale has been praised by critics and he's a hot favourite to take out Best Actor at this year's Academy Awards.