The Toronto International Film Festival, unlike the Euro film fests, isn’t known as a place for standing ovations. As soon as those credits roll, they need to jump into a post-screening Q&…
took the stage teary eyed in what his second major fall festival reception after Venice where he sobbed for six minutes.
Based on the Samuel D. Hunter play, Fraser plays a reclusive English teacher, with a penchant for teaching who lives with severe obesity and attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter as he struggles to stay alive.Yes, a lot of prosthetics went into the performance, but a lot of heart. And that’s what bowled Aronofsky over when he took a meeting with “To find the right actor at the right time, it’s not a calculation,” says Aronofsky.
“With Brendan it was purely the connection of seeing him as a human being, meeting him, and the energy from him. It was a deep gut feeling,” said the filmmaker. “Actors that are hungry is a super important thing because all of these roles are difficult,” he continued, “you have to find the right actor at the right time to work hard.”
“I heard Darren was going to be directing a movie,” said Fraser, “We talked about the project. There was no script at the time. He told me it was about a man with a burden of regret and he’s been harming himself by overeating. And he wants to reconnect with his daughter, and let her know how much he loves her. He’s running out of time. Hey, look, those are really the only things I knew about it already.