Brendan Fraser’s best actor Oscar win on Sunday for his powerful performance as a morbidly obese man in The Whale caps a remarkable career comeback for the charismatic leading man.
The former star of 1990s hits such as The Mummy endured a decade in the Hollywood wilderness before winning over Academy voters with his portrayal of a reclusive teacher who eats compulsively as he is tormented by grief.
“So this is what the multiverse looks like,” an emotional Fraser told the audience at the Dolby Theatre.
“I started in this business 30 years ago, and things – they didn’t come easily to me, but there was a facility that I didn’t appreciate at the time until it stopped,” he said, referring to his long absence from the big screen.
“Thank you for this acknowledgment.”
In Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, Fraser plays Charlie, a 600-pound (250-kilogram) English teacher whose only regular contact with the real world is his nurse and friend Liz (Hong Chau).
Charlie rarely leaves his couch, teaching his students via video calls while gorging on delivery food, and resisting Liz’s pleas to seek medical help for his rapidly deteriorating health.
The drama follows Charlie’s attempts to secretly reconnect with his rebellious and aloof teenage daughter Ellie, while he is also visited by a young missionary who is seemingly determined to save him.
Fraser delivers an intense performance, imbuing his character with depths of regret and agony which are punctuated by bursts of passion and hope sparked by Ellie’s presence.
“Charlie is by far the most heroic man I’ve ever played,” Fraser said at the film’s world premiere in Venice last year. “His superpower is to see the good in others and bring that out in them.”
In claiming his first Oscar, Fraser saw off Austin Butler (Elvis), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin), Paul Mescal (Aftersun), and Bill Nighy (Living).
Meanwhile, Michelle Yeoh made history by becoming the first Asian woman to win the best actress Oscar, for her exuberant portrayal of an immigrant business owner thrust into a zany multiverse in the sci-fi trip Everything Everywhere All at Once.
The Hollywood veteran won over Academy voters with her complex take on Evelyn Wang, a Chinese American laundromat owner who is mired in a tax audit, stuck in a crumbling marriage, and struggling to connect with her daughter Joy.
Oh, and she ends up traversing multiple universes to evade a powerful supernatural enemy, who happens to be an iteration of… her daughter.
“For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities. This is proof that…. dream big and dreams do come true,” Yeoh said as she accepted the award.
“And ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime. Never give up,” she said to cheers.
Yeoh won top honors over strong performances from Cate Blanchett (Tar), Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans), Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie), and Ana de Armas (Blonde).
Everything, directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, arrived at Hollywood’s biggest gala at the top of the nominations pile with 11 chances at Oscars glory, including for best picture.