The Whale' Interviews With Casts Brendan Fraser and Sadie Sink
The stars of Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale” including Brendan Fraser (Charlie), Sadie Sink (Ellie), Hong Chau (Liz) and writer Samuel D. Hunter discuss A24 film in this interview with CinemaBlend’s Sean O’Connell. They discuss what happens next for Ellie, how Fraser’s acting was affected by his character’s prosthetics and more.
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00:00During his time, if he gets through to her,
00:03she'll remember him with such poignancy
00:05that likely she will become amazing.
00:09-♪♪
00:16I would love to start with you, Mr. Fraser.
00:17Your movements in this movie tell a complete story.
00:22They are laborious, and they are painful,
00:23and we literally feel them through the screen.
00:25And so I'm wondering what some of the notes were
00:28that Darren gave you early in the process
00:30as you guys were trying to figure out the prosthetics
00:32and capture or achieve what he wanted to capture.
00:35Interesting, because when we did the first makeup test,
00:37it took six hours to get into it.
00:40Eventually, we got it down to four
00:43when we worked on the day, about an hour to get out of it.
00:45But that it was built one-to-one
00:48to be cumbersome for the actor to wear,
00:50that it was made, fabricated with such an exacting attention
00:56that the size and placement of the very pores itself
00:59on his body and the applications that went on to me,
01:03all in service of authenticity,
01:06always with the mandate that the look of this character
01:10obey the laws of physics and gravity,
01:12whereas we don't really see that done previously in films,
01:16which are often in service of a one-note joke
01:18and a little bit mean-spirited, in my view.
01:20Sure, sure.
01:21This is clearly not that.
01:24A simple thing that we learned was that
01:26unless Charlie's fingers were active a little bit,
01:31where there's some tension in there or they were crossed,
01:34I could never just let them rest, as you would do,
01:37without your eye going to it and going,
01:39hmm, that may look a bit like a fabrication or, you know.
01:44Interesting.
01:45It needed to be vital inside of it all.
01:46And we had Darren Aronofsky, who said to me in this year
01:50that if he was not a film director,
01:52he would have been a baseball umpire
01:54because he sees everything.
01:56That, I can tell you, a 360 fish eye,
01:59he can take it all in, sharp relief.
02:01He knows the answer and he knows the call from home plate,
02:03but he's also a great coach, a great collaborator.
02:09You know, once we had the body of Charlie
02:11and his corporal being down,
02:14then we can go work more internally.
02:16And that's the domain of what Sam Hunter has written
02:20and worked on for many years for the productions
02:22of the whale that were on stage that have been adapted
02:25for the screen for the first time by him.
02:28Right, right.
02:29And Sam, to that end, it's, you know,
02:31it's rare to get to the end of a story
02:33and then just so desperately need to know
02:34what happens next.
02:36And I'm curious if you have thought at all
02:38about where Ellie goes and maybe even had some conversations
02:42with either Sadie or Darren about that.
02:44Not really.
02:45Not that I can recall.
02:46I mean, I think there's just,
02:48I think with all of my plays,
02:50I never really make decisions about where,
02:53what happens afterward.
02:54You know what I mean?
02:56I think storytelling is,
02:57kind of the amazing thing of it is like,
02:59you just get this like section of this person's humanity
03:03and it's not my job to deliver anything
03:05other than that section.
03:06And in fact, if I were to like say anything
03:09or impose upon that,
03:10I think that's kind of taking away something
03:12for the audience.
03:13You know what I mean?
03:14Like I'm only giving them a specific limited portrait.
03:20And I think that's what I love about drama
03:23is that like, there's so many different perspectives.
03:27There's so many different voices.
03:28Like I'm not, there's no authorial voice
03:31or at least there shouldn't be in dramas.
03:33There shouldn't be an authorial voice
03:34telling the audience what to think
03:36or what to believe or what to feel.
03:38I think that's up to the very complicated matrix
03:41of these five people.
03:43Oh my God.
03:44We didn't discuss it, but it keeps me up at night.
03:45I have no clue.
03:47I think there's so much potential in Ellie to,
03:51you know, be a really honest, good person.
03:56Brendan's theory is that she becomes
03:58this incredible, strong writer,
03:59goes on to be an author.
04:01There's another theory that she just continues on her,
04:05you know, her bad path.
04:09I think I do, I do have hope in her
04:13after this week that she has with Charlie.
04:14I think she learned a lot about herself
04:17and was able to kind of let her guard down,
04:20but most importantly, just get closure
04:23from her relationship with her father.
04:26But yeah, that's what's next for Ellie.
04:28Hopefully all good things.
04:30No, I know.
04:31In a way, I want to see it, but I don't want to see it.
04:33Right, right.
04:34I'm a little nervous.
04:35Yeah.
04:36I let my imagination go a little bit wild, Sam,
04:39to tell you the truth,
04:40because I believe that Charlie believes in his daughter,
04:43not just because she's his daughter,
04:45but I do firmly believe that he realizes that, yes,
04:49she will care about people.
04:50Yes, the people will love her,
04:53but yes, he also realizes she's talented
04:57in ways that she is not even aware of yet.
05:01And during his time, if he gets through to her,
05:05she'll remember him with such poignancy
05:07that likely she will become the amazing author,
05:11author, great mind in the making
05:15of how she just even represents herself
05:18when she scribbles something in a notebook
05:20that turns out to be,
05:23whether it's by design or accident,
05:27a pretty clever haiku.
05:28She has poetry within her.
05:32She has unrealized potential.
05:34And that's how I feel aspirant and positive
05:38about what became of her
05:40after clearly a portrait of her fraught youth
05:45and understanding herself and her father.
05:48People are incapable of not caring.
05:52In this story, I really do feel like Charlie's apartment
05:54was something that we felt.
05:56And so I'm wondering as performers,
05:58and maybe Sadie, start with you,
05:59can you be inspired by a location?
06:01Can you play off of a set
06:03the way that you would like a human co-star?
06:05Absolutely.
06:06I think for Ellie, the apartment's tricky
06:10because when she walks into the apartment,
06:12she's looking at everything that her father left her for.
06:18So it's a really dark space for her to be in,
06:21but it's also, it was,
06:23I remember the first day that we got to see it all
06:25with the set dressing, the props, everything.
06:27It was like a playground.
06:28It was so fun.
06:31But yeah, I think part of just kind of staying
06:35in that one space,
06:37it gets, you know, you have to be a little creative
06:40for Darren and Maddie, the DP,
06:42like the angles that they use,
06:45and for us, where we were walking,
06:47what space we were utilizing.
06:50But yeah, I agree with you.
06:51I think the apartment is definitely a character of itself.
06:55Holland, did you feel that way as well, too,
06:57when you had to spend time in the apartment?
06:59Did you feel as constrained
07:00as I think we all are supposed to?
07:03That was definitely intentional.
07:05And I think also because Brendan's character
07:08is pretty stationary for a lot of the story,
07:12we sort of had to orbit him,
07:14and part of rehearsal was just figuring out
07:18what the best way to do that was.
07:21Liz in this movie is such a complicated character,
07:24and her relationship with Charlie, of course,
07:25is extremely complicated.
07:26And I'm wondering at what point in the process
07:29did you feel like you fully understood her,
07:32or did you ever get to that point?
07:35I think I did.
07:37I understood the complexity of that relationship
07:40where Liz, at times, was an enabler for Charlie.
07:50In my own life, I've definitely had to tell family members,
07:53like, you need to go to the doctor.
07:54Why haven't you gone to the doctor?
07:56And so that rang so true to me,
08:02those moments and even the moments
08:05when she's bringing him food that's not really healthy.
08:12And I just think they have such a long history
08:18with each other and a complicated and painful history
08:23that they share that she really wants to comfort him
08:30in any way that she can.
08:31And so I think because she's doing it out of love,
08:35it can really blind her to just the unhealthy aspects of it.
08:45I'm burning the kicking out.
08:46I just need to know, were those your feet
08:48that stepped into the ocean?
08:49Did you get to do that?
08:50And was it rewarding?
08:51Indeed they were.
08:52That was a nice day at the beach.
08:54And I should say also, that's Sadie's little sister
08:57playing little Sadie.
08:59Is it really?
09:01That's great.
09:02Keep it in the family.