Daniel Franzese says Brendan Fraser is a “lovely” actor but doesn’t understand why the upcoming movie The whale did not choose to cast a gay actor with a larger body in Fraser’s lead role.
When speaking to personsthe mean girls and Seek star said he feels conflicted over Fraser’s casting in the Darren Aronofsky A24 film, which is based on Samuel D. Hunter’s 2012 play of the same name and follows a gay man trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter. Franzese expressed that he likes it and is pleased The Mummy and Killer of the Flower Moon star whose performance is being billed as his comeback to the big screen. Still, the actor and comedian said he was “conflicted.”
“I love Brendan Fraser, [so] I am very conflicted. When I saw him stand up so humbly in Venice and have that moment, I was very happy for him. He is a lovely man. And it’s great,” he said. “But why? Why go up there and wear a fat suit to play a 400 lb. weird man?”
Franzese noted that both queer actors and those with larger bodies in Hollywood have already written fewer roles for her without having to compete with straight actors in body suits for creatively meaningful, career-impacting roles.
“Finally having the chance to be in a prestigious film, potentially nominated for an award, that tells stories about people who look like us? That’s the dream,” he told the magazine. “So when they keep going back and casting someone like Brendan Fraser, me and the other big queer guys, we’re like, ‘What the…?'”
That glow and recovery road The actor went on to note that it was the kind of role he “would have loved” to read for if given the chance. “Who knows more about being an obese queer man than an obese queer man?” he explained. “But I think you can go ahead and wear a big suit and do what you have to do and get your Oscar. We’ll just sit here and wait.”
Franzese also addressed why he thinks queer actors have historically not gotten around to playing queer roles on screen, and pointed to the fear of the international market’s reception of gay representation in the narrative , which can be reinforced by the fact that the actor is gay himself.
“The biggest problem we have in our industry right now is that people like me and my colleagues can’t sell films abroad when we’re actually queer because the world is homophobic,” he said. “Even if America is ready for a gay star like that, they have a hard time selling the film abroad, so they get scared.”
He added, “It’s going to take risk-taking and real pioneers so that we can cut our teeth in these roles as actors, so that we too have a shot at a full-on Hollywood career.”
In an August interview with vanity fair, Fraser remarked after stepping into the fat suit, “I quickly learned that to be that person it takes an incredibly strong person in that body. That seemed fitting and poetic and practical at the same time.”
He also shared something The whale Director Aronofsky told him about the decision to cast him for the role. “He said he wanted an actor to be reintroduced,” Fraser explained. “And I wanted to be reintroduced.”
Aronofsky’s search for someone for the role was a decades-long endeavor that began when Aronofsky first saw Hunter’s play. While Hunter worked on the film’s script, Aronofsky struggled with the “distressing” process of finding the actor who the director believed could offer “both star power and authenticity,” according to the magazine.
“I thought about it everyone Movie star playing Charlie, and it never made sense or clicked,” Aronofsky said.
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Fraser and Aronofsky representatives for comment.
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