At the Venice Film Festival on Sunday to discuss his new film “The Whale,” the 53-year-old actor answered press conference questions with a quiver in his voice and director Darren Aronofsky’s steady hand on his shoulder. And whenever a clearly emotional Fraser managed to get to the end of a statement without tears welling up in his eyes, the room full of journalists burst into cheering applause. “Thank you for the warm welcome,” Fraser said. “I can’t wait to see how this film will make as deep an impression on everyone as it did on me.” Although his career has faltered in the years since “The Mummy” (1999) made him a bankable leading man, “The Whale” offers Fraser a showy comeback role unlike anything he’s ever played. In Aronofsky’s film, adapted from the play by Samuel D. Hunter, Fraser dons a prosthetic body to play Charlie, a 600-pound gay man who lives in unhappy isolation after the death of his lover. Whether he’s grabbing a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken or two double-stacked pizza slices filled with American cheese, Charlie eats so self-destructively that he doesn’t even bother to chew his food. he inhales every piece, as if he hopes to choke it. His caregiver (Hong Chow) warns Charlie that his blood pressure is so severe that unless he changes his ways or goes to a hospital, he will almost certainly die. But in the meantime, Charlie tries to pull his estranged daughter (Sandy Sink) back into his orbit, trying to make things right with her before the end seems to be running non-stop. Aronofsky wanted to make the film for years, but could never get the lead right. “I thought about everybody – all different types of actors, every movie star on the planet – but none of them really clicked,” the director said. “It just didn’t move me, it didn’t feel right.” A light bulb went off when he found a trailer for “Journey to the End of the Night,” a low-budget 2006 film starring Fraser: Perhaps, like Mickey Rourke in Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” Fraser was ready for redemption. And for that matter, transformation. Fraser wears prosthetic devices to portray Charlie who sometimes weighed up to 300 extra pounds. “I had to learn to move in a new way,” Fraser said. “I developed muscles I didn’t know I had. I even felt a sense of vertigo at the end of the day when all the devices were removed, just like you would feel getting off the boat at the dock here in Venice.” Oscar voters love a candidate who undergoes a physical transformation, but not everyone is happy with his cinematic transformation: In the last year alone, actors like Sarah Paulson, Colin Farrell, Jared Leto, Emma Thompson and Renee Zellweger have wear fat suits to play. overweight characters, a practice some argue is lipophobic and exploitative. For his part, Fraser said that spending time in Charlie’s skin gave me “an appreciation for those whose bodies are similar, because I learned that you have to be an incredibly strong person physically, mentally, to inhabit that natural being. And I think that’s Charlie.” Many of Fraser’s early roles relied on his natural beauty and muscular frame, and one journalist recalled watching ‘George of the Jungle’ with her children, noting: ‘Being very handsome can isolate you, because the people don’t see you.” Fraser, who is long past his pod days, nodded. “I looked different in those days,” he said. “My journey to where I am now has been to explore as many characters as I can and that has presented me with the biggest challenge.” Will this challenge lead to Fraser’s first Oscar nomination? It was clear from the standing ovation at the press conference that people loved the actor and that his personal narrative of a career comeback combined with a show-stopping role could propel Fraser to the front of the pack. But when asked about that buzz and what it meant for the future of his career, Fraser quietly said it remains to be seen. “My crystal ball is broken,” Frazier told the reporter. “I don’t know if yours works, but meet me after the show and we’ll take a look together.”
