Today, the highly anticipated film The
Whale is now in theaters in our area.
It stars Brendan Fraser,
recently nominated for a Golden
Globe for his portrayal of Charlie,
a reclusive and severely
obese English teacher.
And Charlie is trying to reconnect with
his estranged daughter one last time.
Here's a sneak peek.
You don't stay in touch with Mom.
She really only tells me things about you.
Why? Because that's all I
want to know about. Where'd
you get all that weight? Someone
close to me passed away
and it had an effect on me.
You haven't seen her since
she was eight years old.
And you're going to reconnect with her.
Sorry. I don't like this.
This isn't a good idea. I'm sorry.
You say you're sorry one more time.
I will shove a knife right into you.
I swear to God.
What's it gonna do?
My internal organs are
two feet in, at least.
Ohh, this film is amazing.
I recently spoke with the
two leading ladies Hung Chow,
who plays Charlie's best friend
and caretaker Liz and Sadie Sink,
who plays his daughter Ellie.
Just reading this role of Ellie,
what was your initial reaction to her?
Oh man, I had a lot of thoughts.
She's definitely there's a lot to
unpack there, but I think I was just.
I was really intrigued by her,
and I thought it was a nice challenge
just to kind of peel back the layers and,
you know, figure out who she really is
because she's definitely got this tough,
complicated exterior that's
pretty unlikable at first.
So it was, it was.
I was, I was excited
being the mom of two teen girls,
I related to some of what
Ellie was going through.
I hope they're not as bad.
Not to the extent the typical teen angst,
right, but, but just her character.
I mean, she's, she was feisty and edgy,
but she's hurt and she's,
you know, wants to be loved.
And Liz, I fit.
Or Hong, I feel like Liz was
very much kind of that same way.
She was so empathetic and so kind,
but she had those little feisty moments, too.
Oh, absolutely. I think that's
what drew me to the role was
that she was the best friend in
the caretaker, but she's also.
Very thorny and very caustic,
but she does it with a sense of humor.
So it was, it was nice to be able
to layer all of that together. You
know, we've gotten so much
hype leading up to the movie,
and I'm sitting there with
other media members crying like
they can't can't see me cry.
It was just so heartwarming and special.
What has these last few weeks
been like since all of the buzz,
since the six minute standing ovation,
since everything's been coming
out about this movie? It's
been fun, I mean.
It's kind of surreal just considering
what the filming process was like.
It felt really small.
And so for it now to be finally
shared with the world and people
are responding in this way.
It's kind of crazy at first,
but now I find it like it's
like a personal success.
If, like, someone I know
is crying during the film,
like my family was crying and I was like,
oh God, it's hard about you.
Yeah, it's such a leap of faith.
Every movie project that you take on,
you never know how it's going
to be received by an audience.
So when we were shooting.
This week, you know,
even Darren had moments of self doubt.
Like, I don't know, you know,
who's gonna want to watch this movie,
but we're just so happy that even
though it's a difficult subject,
people really see that it's actually
an uplifting story in the end.
I have to ask the both of you,
because reading past interviews, neither
of you had seen Brendan Fraser
movies before this calling.
You and I are similar generation.
I'm totally in the right pocket
to be a super fan, but I
I don't know where I was. I
didn't. You know what, I didn't get to
go to the movie theater
a lot when I was younger,
so I think that's what it was. What
was it like? Sadie, I'll start with
you meeting Brendan for the first time.
I mean, he's he's such an amazing guy and.
I thought it was cool that that that
I only really knew him as Charlie.
I could only really see him or know
him for his performance as Charlie.
But no, he he really is so
sweet and so smart and I mean,
we were all just blown away every day.
You just fall in love with him,
really, truly.
As soon as you meet him,
within like 5 minutes of talking to him,
he knew that I had just given birth and
so he had a gift for me, for my baby.
And we talked about, you know,
he talked, he has three sons,
so he talked about his children and I
sent him texts and little videos of my
daughter like and I just never feel
silly sending them to him because I know
that he actually genuinely likes it.
So he's just a really sweet man.
And it's a really sweet film,
Brendan Fraser says.
It took four hours every day
to transform into Charlie,
and then one hour to take all of that off.
The Whale has received widespread
praise at this year's film festivals,
and again, it's now in theaters
in our area starting today.