-You know our first guest tonight from movies such as
"Gods and Monsters," "George of the Jungle,"
and "The Mummy."
He is receiving critical acclaim for his starring role in
"The Whale," which is in theaters now,
Please welcome to the show, Brendan Fraser, everybody.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-Welcome to the show, Brendan.
-Thank you. -This has been --
We have not seen each other since 2008 when we collaborated.
-Yes. [ laughter ]
-On --On "Journey to the Center of the Earth."
It was --it was very --
I'd never been anywhere near a movie with a budget that big.
It was very exciting to be there.
You were incredibly gracious and kind.
-Well, thank you.
-You're very welcome.
I don't feel like I was given much to do in the film.
-You were the bad guy, weren't you?
-I was the bad guy. -The defect-- defector.
-I always said I had two scenes in the movie.
The first one was -- I was like,
"You can't go to the center of the Earth."
and then at the end, I was like, "Whoa!"
-"Whoa!"
-But it was 3-D. -It was.
-And it was --the technology was sort of ahead of its time.
-It was. It was the tip of the spear
for 3-D tech as we see it now in theaters,
because the cameras we used were the ones that
James Cameron kind of beta tested with that movie.
And then, we -- we put them under water
and dropped them off of helicopters.
And then he took them to New Zealand.
he shot "Avatar" with them. -Yeah.
And people talk about both those movies the same.
[ laughter and applause ]
but I do -- I do want to show my one --
one clip because it was a 3-D movie.
I wanted to make sure I had one 3-D moment.
Again, it's an action film.
It was an action film.
I had none of the action scenes,
but I'm very proud of this very short clip.
-It's good.
-This is the wrong time to shut us down.
I have got seismic activity in Bolivia.
I've got a 13 millimeter shift in Mongolia.
Allen, you can't shut us down. keep the lab open.
It's all I've got left of max.
-It's been 10 years since Max, Trevor.
I am sorry about all this.
I really am.
-I mean -- whoa. -Woo!
-I mean, if you -- if you were in the theater opening night,
people screamed.
[ laughter ]
Now you also -- another face you haven't seen
for a very long time is our cue card guy, Wally.
Do you see Wally over there?
Do you recognize old Wally? Cue Card Wally?
-Hey, Wally! -Hey, how ya doing?
-How have you been?
-I'm great, man. I'm really good.
-It's good to see you again. -I know. you too, buddy.
-So, Wally, of course, was the cue card guy
when you hosted "SNL." -Yes.
-And another clip I'd like to show --
because I remember watching when it happened --
you did a "Xena: A Warrior Princess" skit.
-Yes, I did. -With Molly Shannon.
-Correct.
-And one of those things that, you know,
happens in live television happened.
And I want to say -- I'm not going to say what it is,
but I want to say you rolled with the punches very well.
You fixed the problem very quickly.
-Thank you. -Can we show it real quick?
-Please do. -All right. Here you go.
[ screaming ]
[ laughter and applause ]
[ Screaming continues ]
-Xena, you are truly a warrior Princess!
[ laughter ]
It's really well done.
-Thank you. [ Cheers and applause ]
-Not just the awareness to know your wig came off,
but to put it back on, and then to split the hair.
that's -- -Thank you.
And then I looked up, and I was too busy laughing,
and I see Wally, and he is doing --
[ laughter ]
-There you go. Wally keeps everybody on task.
That's his job.
This is such an incredibly heartbreaking and wonderful
performance in this film, "The Whale,"
and you've been receiving deserved accolades for it.
you play a 600-pound man who is housebound,
trying to reconnect with his daughter.
-Yeah.
-What drew you to doing -- what you must have known
it would have a huge emotional toll --
sorry, toll to --
-When I read it, I felt like I could
be friends with this guy. -Mm-hmm.
-I identified in many ways about him as a father and as him
wanting to reach out to young people to get them to be honest
about who they -- who they are.
And I also felt that there was a real story to be told about
someone who's locked behind closed doors.
and we get to peer inside his world, which is really just
a two-bedroom apartment.
That, and of course, it was directed by Darren Aronofsky.
-Yeah, he is wonderful.
-And I -- I absolutely felt -- well, you know, "sign me up."
And on top of that, there was an extensive and careful use
of prosthetic makeup, which I'm a big fan of.
I love the craft of filmmaking
and all of the elements that go into it.
And -- and a long time collaborator of Darren's,
Adrien Morot, had put together a character look that
I'm pretty sure for the first time obeyed the laws of physics
and gravity in how it responded to an actor inside of it.
Very often weight gain suits and obesity portrayed in films
has -- has been unfair.
It's been a silhouette of -- of a costume
inside an actor who is quite fit just seems to --
just reorients the way that we believe that --
that someone can actually move and exist.
And in this -- in this incarnation of it,
Charlie is a man who has significant health challenges,
and he has very little time to reconnect with his daughter,
if he can even do that at all.
His is a path of redemption, that he seeks.
His daughter is played by Sadie Sink,
who is fantastic in this film.
I hope you get a chance to see her.
And his -- his friend and caretaker is played by
Hong Chau, who is brilliant in this -- this role.
She is great in everything she does.
There is something wonderful about Hong
that I noticed right away.
She's -- has this ability to say more in between lines
of dialogue and in the pauses and the silences
very often than what the lines are that are on the page.
And it was a -- a piece that was shot during COVID.
And, so, for that, clearly, we had to be very careful
with one another for our well-being, our safety.
And somehow that translates to what I think you see
on the screen.
We -- we seem to be giving it everything that we have
because of, well, the very real existential threat that
we might not be able to come back and do this later.
So, might as well leave it all on the screen.
-And I think one of the remarkable things about,
obviously, the time that goes into prosthetics is any --
if you see any seam, if you see anything that takes you
out of the story, it won't have the same resonance.
And, so, I'm -- I was really taken aback, just appreciating.
-Yes. -And it's nice you say
there are so many different people that go into
the making of a movie.
This is one in particular where you realize,
"Oh, we're seeing craftsmanship on the screen here."
Because at no moment do you think,
"Oh, this is just, you know --
-It's -- it's an analog creation.
There's no CGU -- well, with the exception of maybe --
on some fabric that was in its own movie that morning
or something, you know?
A little bit later.
But aside from that, what you see is what you get.
That's, you know, an actor in --
in a suit that is cumbersome enough to drive home
the authenticity of what it appears to be
an individual or a person who lives with that challenge.
-Well, it was a stunning thing to see on film.
I have a lot more to ask you about.
We will be right back with more from Brendan Fraser,
everybody.