Brendan Fraser is making his big screen comeback with Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale. The A24-produced drama marks Fraser’s first mainstream leading role in almost a decade, and it’s already generating significant awards buzz, which is about to intensify further.
The Whale is set to screen at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, where Fraser will be honored with the TIFF Tribute Award for Performance. TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey released a statement (via Deadline) saying:
Brendan Fraser gives a performance of staggering depth, power, and nuance in The Whale. This former Torontonian has been an action star, a screen comic, and a romantic lead. We’re thrilled to welcome him home as the actor behind one of the finest performances of the year.”
The past recipients of the TIFF Tribute Awards include Jessica Chastain and Benedict Cumberbatch in 2021; Kate Winslet and Sir Anthony Hopkins in 2020; and Meryl Streep and Joaquin Phoenix in 2019. And most of these actors went on to receive Academy Award nominations as well. So it’s safe to say Brendan Fraser could earn his first Oscar, or at the least, a nomination, this year.
Fraser plays a reclusive 600-pound man named Charlie in The Whale, who tries to reconnect with his 17-year-old daughter after abandoning his family for his gay lover, who later dies. Fraser underwent a remarkable transformation to portray the character, and it appears The Whale will feature one of his best performances to date.
The Whale is based on the play of the same name by Samuel D. Hunter, who also wrote the screenplay, and will be Aronofsky’s first directorial effort since his widely polarizing 2017 horror film, Mother!. The Whale also stars Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Ty Simpkins, Sathya Sridharan, and Samantha Morton.
The Whale doesn’t have a release date yet but will have its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2022, before heading to TIFF, which will take place from September 8–18.
Get Ready For The Brenaissance

Brendan Fraser was one of the most popular stars in the ’90s, whose action and comedy roles in The Mummy trilogy, Encino Man, Bedazzled, and George of the Jungle are memorable even today. Unfortunately, Fraser went through a rough stretch in the 2000s.
Due to his countless injuries from performing his own stunts, divorce, and the infamous sexual assault by former Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Phillip Berk, Fraser withdrew from acting briefly. He had a few notable blockbusters like Journey to the Center of the Earth and Inkheart, but Fraser struggled to find roles after that. He revealed in 2018 that he may have been blacklisted by Hollywood.
However, Brendan Fraser is set to make a grand comeback and is probably the most adored personality on the internet right now after Keanu Reeves. His resurgence, termed the Brenaissance, is in full swing, with Fraser set to headline multiple high-profile projects, including Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, HBO’s Doom Patrol, and the Twins-inspired sibling comedy, Brothers, starring Josh Brolin and Peter Dinklage. Fraser was also supposed to play the main antagonist, Firefly, in DC’s Batgirl, which was controversially axed earlier this month.