Brendan Fraser on Real Reason Darren Aronofsky Cast Him in ‘The Whale’

At the Red Sea Film Festival in Saudi Arabia Sunday, Brendan Fraser, who won an Oscar for his work in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale,” revealed the real reason why the director chose him for the role.

Fraser said Aronofsky was looking for “an actor who hadn’t been seen in a while” to play Charlie, the reclusive, morbidly obese English teacher, “and that was me.”

The actor also announced that he just wrapped shooting Anthony Maras’ “Pressure,” a ticking-clock thriller based on the true story of the 72 hours leading up to D-Day. Fraser plays Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower in the film. “Hence the short hair. It is all growing back, thank you very much.”

Andrew Scott plays a meteorologist in the film, which focuses on the crucial role that weather forecasting played in the decisions leading up to D-Day. “All these conversations that weekend before, from the Thursday onward, were not inconsequential, and definitely made me appreciate a rather, you know, otherwise nerdy, inconsequential thing, like looking at your phone and wondering ‘What’s the weather going to be like.’”

He praised Maras for being a “fantastic collaborator,” as was Aronofsky. “The best directors are the ones who I think are collaborators and who create an ensemble and who have a real sense of community and the good ideas coming that,” he said. He added that Maras “creates the reality of a scene to give an audience a feeling as if they’re a fly on the wall, and we’re seeing this happen in real time. Did I mention the movie was called ‘Pressure’ because that’s exactly what it was.”

He also spoke about another upcoming role, in Searchlight Pictures’ comedic drama “Rental Family,” which shot recently in Japan. The film is directed by Hikari, “a Japanese American who has written a story about what it means to have a family, it not being the one necessarily that we’re born into, but the…