Brendan Fraser Wins Best Actor at the 2023 SAG Awards

In an emotional moment that may be the capstone to his celebrated awards season comeback, Brendan Fraser won the SAG Award for outstanding lead actor for his performance in The Whale. The transformative, deeply felt performance has earned Fraser the most effusive accolades of his career, and particularly after a few years away from the business, Fraser seemed to welcome the warm return. “I’m smiling and breathing, that’s half the job,” he said, composing himself as he took the stage before quoting a decorated former co-star: “Ian McKellen told me to be good, be brief, and be seated. So here goes.”

Like supporting actor winner Ke Huy Quan before him, Fraser mentioned his moments of struggle in the industry, and spoke to actors who might be in the same situation he was once in. Describing a wave of hope that’s carried him through points in his life, he went on: “And I’ve also had that wave smash me right down to the ocean floor and drag my face along there and wind up on some strange beach in a different world. All the actors out there who have gone through that, I know how you feel. Believe me, if you just stay in there and you put one foot in front of the other, you’ll get to where you need to go.”

Even before The Whale premiered at the Venice Film Festival last August, Fraser’s performance was anticipated as a major event. In a first-look piece for Vanity Fair, Fraser said of director Darren Aronofsky, “He said he wanted an actor to reintroduce. And I wanted to be reintroduced.” He embraced the challenge of playing Charlie, a 600-pound English teacher who has retreated inside his apartment while facing myriad life-threatening health problems. “If there’s no risk, then why bother?” Fraser said “I want to learn from the people I’m working with at this point in my career. I’ve had such variety, a lot of high highs and low lows, so what I’m keen for, in the second half of my time doing this, is to feel like I’m contributing to the craft and I’m learning from it. This is a prime opportunity. I wanted to disappear into it. My hope was that I would become unrecognizable.”

At the Oscars in two weeks, Fraser will once again be nominated against The Banshees of Inisherin star Colin Farrell and Elvis star Austin Butler, both of whom have been perceived as frontrunners at various points in the season. The SAG victory is a major milestone for Fraser, who won the Critics Choice Award in January but had not yet received a major industry recognition. Precedent suggests that the SAG winner is very, very likely to repeat at the Oscars — but in a race this close, it may be too early to make that call.

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