Alberto Rodriguez for Variety
Leonardo DiCaprio And Robert DeNiro perhaps Oscar winners will headline Martin ScorseseKillers of the Flower Moon, but there is actually a third among the supporting cast. So let’s look back at Brendan Fraserpath to his Best Actor win for The Whale earlier this year.
Adapted from Samuel D. HunterIn the 2012 production of The Whale, Fraser played Charlie, a 600-pound English teacher who isolates himself from the world but is given a chance at redemption as he tries to repair his relationship with his estranged daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink). The film had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2022, where it received a standing ovation. From that moment on, experts began to consider Fraser the favorite to win the Oscar for Best Actor.
Fraser was very prolific in the 1990s and early 2000s, ranging from blockbusters such as George of the Jungle and The Mummy to Oscar-winning dramas such as Gods and Monsters and Crash. However, from the late 2000s to the mid-2010s, his career slowed due to various medical and personal reasons, including the effects of being the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press. Philip Burke allegedly groped him in 2003. However, he has kept busy on the small screen, playing supporting roles in The Affair, Trust and Doom Patrol.
“The Whale” marked Fraser’s first starring role in a major film in more than a decade. However, early in the season he won Best Actor awards from various critics’ groups. Colin Farrell won most of the critics’ awards for his role as a man who tries to restore a cherished friendship in The Banshees of Inisherina. Farrell’s most notable awards for Best Actor came from the National Society of Film Critics, the National Board of Review, and the Venice International Film Festival.
On January 10, 2023, the Golden Globes returned to NBC after not telecasting the previous year due to an HFPA boycott due to a lack of diversity within the organization. Before the nominations were announced, Fraser publicly stated that due to his rocky history with them, he would not be attending the ceremony even if he did get nominated. He did receive a bid for Best Actor in a Drama but lost Austin Butler for his image Elvis Presley in Elvis. Meanwhile, Farrell won the award for Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical for Banshee.
Then, on January 15, the Critics Choice Awards took place. This was the first major predecessor that Fraser attended. Farrell was the favorite to win best actor. Yet it was Fraser who won his first major prize of the season. Oscar nominations were due in just nine days, with “The Whale” expected to receive a total of five nominations, according to Gold Derby’s combined projections.
On the morning of January 24, when the nominations were announced, “The Whale” received only three nominations: Best Actor (Fraser), Best Supporting Actress (Hong Chau), as well as “Best Makeup and Hairstyle” – as expected. It missed out on the other two categories it was predicted for, Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Meanwhile, Banshee and Elvis were in the Best Picture category and received nine and eight nominations, respectively. Suddenly things weren’t looking so good for Fraser, as the last Best Actor winner whose film didn’t have a corresponding Best Picture nomination was Jeff Bridges for “Crazy Heart” in 2009.
The BAFTA awards ceremony took place on February 19. Banshee should have won many awards, including Best Actor for Farrell’s performance. Throughout the ceremony, she received the award for Best Supporting Actress (Kerry Condon), Best Original Screenplay and Best British Film, as expected. Plus Barry Keoghan gave a big surprise in the category “Best Supporting Actor” Ke Hai Quan, who received awards left and right for the film “Everything Everywhere at Once.” You’d think these wins would be good for Pharrell, right?
However, Best Actor went to Butler instead. The feeling at the time was that if Farrell failed to win a BAFTA, especially for a film that was otherwise successful there, then his Oscar chances would be diminished. Meanwhile, Butler’s win made him an even bigger Oscar threat. And several prominent actors have publicly praised him, such as: Emily BluntLeonardo DiCaprio, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Emma ThompsonAnd Denzel Washington.
The Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony took place on February 26. Butler’s victory was almost certainly predicted. It seemed like he could benefit from SAG becoming a larger, more populist awards group that would rally around the star of a crowd-pleasing hit. Meanwhile, according to A24, experts were not sent to screen “The Whale” because they wanted voters to see it in theaters. With that in mind, things weren’t going well for Fraser… yet. Jessica Chastain declared him the winner. The race for the Best Actor Oscar was still ongoing.
In the final stages of Oscar voting, it still looked like a three-horse race, with most prognosticators settling on Butler due to the fact that he played a real person (which is usually catnip at the Oscars). It was like 2008 when Mickey Rourke was the early favorite to make his comeback in The Wrestler, another Darren Aronofsky film with limited academy support but lost Sean Penn for Game Harvey Milk in the Best Picture nominated film Milk.
The 95th Academy Awards ceremony finally took place on March 12th. Early at night Jennifer Connelly And Samuel L. Jackson together presented the best makeup and hairstyle. Elvis was expected to win the award, which would be in line with Butler’s projected win, similar to previous Oscar winners for dual lead and makeup such as La Vie En Rose, The Iron Lady, Dallas Buyers Club, Darkest Hour ” and “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” So when Connelly announced “The Whale” as the winner instead, it could have been a sign of things to come.
Towards the end of the ceremony Halle Berry and Chastain submitted both major acting categories together, starting with Best Actor. Berry said, “And the Oscar goes to…” and opened the envelope to reveal “Brendan Fraser.” Fraser was very excited as he walked onto the stage to a massive ovation. He thanked the academy, A24, the cast and crew, his fellow nominees, his sons, his manager and his partner. Jeanne Moore.
So how did Fraser survive? I think the key factor was momentum. The fact that he won the SAG Awards, the last big harbinger before final Oscar voting begins, gave him a boost at the right time. Not to mention, A24 campaigned like hell for “The Whale” throughout the final vote. In addition, Fraser’s character was terminally ill. How Michael Keaton learned the hard way when he lost his comeback in Birdman Eddie Redmayneportrait of a patient with ALS Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything in 2014, when it comes to winning an Oscar, illness often wins.
Butler, meanwhile, was just 31 and new to the awards scene. While we did have two relatively young biopic Best Actor winners in the last decade, they were both more established. When the aforementioned Redmayne won for The Theory of Everything, he was already on stage as a Tony Award-winning stage actor, with standout film roles in My Week with Marilyn and Les Misérables. And when Rami Malek won for the game Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 2018, he was already a well-known actor, having won an Emmy Award for “Mr.” Robot”.
Meanwhile, Butler was previously known only for his small supporting role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which was clearly not enough. Voters may have sensed that he would have more opportunities in the future. As for Farrell, we’ll probably never know how close the final vote was, but if he had any kind of surge in the home stretch, it was too late. As for the other two nominees, Paul Mescal (“After-Sun”) and Bill Nighy (Alive), neither were considered likely winners as their films had minimal support.
Fraser will soon return as Cliff Steele/Robotman in the fourth and final season of Max’s Doom Patrol and could be seen as a lawyer. W. S. Hamilton in Killers of the Flower Moon.
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