Teary-Eyed Brendan Fraser’s Oscar Speech Brings the House Down with Best Actor Win, Nautical Puns

By Brett White @brettwhite
Published March 13, 2023, 8:05 a.m. ET

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It was a good night for the cast of Encino Man. No, Gen Z, that’s not the name of an Oscar-worthy indie darling that you missed from the most recent awards season. I’m talking about the 1992 comedy film starring Brendan Fraser and featuring Ke Huy Quan — the two actors who took home trophies for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor at this year’s Academy Awards.

Brendan Fraser’s Oscar win for his turn as a morbidly obese teacher desperately trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter in The Whale came after his wins at the Critics’ Choice Award and the Screen Actors Guild Awards, capping off a whirlwind season for the beloved actor.

“So this is what the multiverse looks like!” joked an overwhelmed Fraser upon taking the stage to accept the award, a reference to his Encino Man co-star Ke Huy Quan’s Oscar-winning movie Everything Everywhere All at Once. The theme of Fraser’s speech was one of gratitude and surprise, with the actor alluding to the fact that he spent most of the 2010s out of the movies and in recurring roles on TV dramas like The Affair, Trust, and Condor. “I’m grateful to Darren Aronofsky for throwing me a creative lifeline and hauling me aboard the good ship The Whale.”

Fraser kept the nautical metaphor going, thanking writer Samuel D. Hunter, who Fraser called the film’s “lighthouse.” Of his fellow nominees, Fraser said, “Gentleman, you laid your whale-sized hearts bare so that we could see into your souls like no one else could do, and it is my honor to be named alongside you in this category.” And of his co-star and fellow nominee Hong Chau, Fraser said, “I wanted to tell you that only whales can swim at the depths of the talent of Hong Chau.”

Whale metaphors out of the way, Fraser returned to the heart of his awards season story: his feature film comeback. “I started in this business 30 years ago and things, they didn’t come easily to me, but there was a facility that I didn’t appreciate at the time until it stopped.” Prior to his critically-acclaimed role in The Whale, Fraser spent much of the ’90s and ’00s as a major box office draw, starring in the Mummy trilogy, Journey to the Center of the Earth, George of the Jungle, and Blast from the Past.

Oh — no, still room for one more nautical allusion. “[This performance] couldn’t be done without my cast,” said Fraser. “It’s been like I’ve been on a diving expedition on the bottom of the ocean and the air on the line to the surface is launch being watched over” by his cast and crew, his family, and his manager. He closed with: “Thank you again, each one and all. I’m so grateful to you. Good night.”

While Fraser has been a frontrunner all season long, The Whale’s Oscar bid hasn’t been without controversy. Twitter was shocked when the film won for makeup and hairstyling, considering that the film was heavily critiqued for using a fat suit on Fraser instead of casting an actor of size. Parts of Twitter were particularly torn about it’s love/hate relationship with this moment — specifically how many love Fraser and hate The Whale.

Still, Fraser’s win brings a satisfying conclusion to one of the Oscar season’s comeback stories. And no matter what you feel about The Whale, seeing Fraser holding an Oscar onstage just felt right. Fraser’s Encino Man co-star Sean Astin tweeted on behalf of all of us…