Brendan Fraser Reveals Whether His Oscar Win Finally Brought Better Roles
The Rental Family star Brendan Fraser pulls back the curtain on life after his 2023 Oscar for The Whale — and whether the roles landing in his inbox actually got better.
Brendan Fraser just gave a refreshingly candid update on what life actually looks like after you win an Oscar. Short version: the phone doesn’t suddenly ring with 100 perfect scripts. He’s 57, fresh off his 2023 Best Actor win for Darren Aronofsky’s 'The Whale' (he played a man living with severe obesity), and now out promoting 'The Rental Family' with filmmaker Hikari. And he’s keeping it real about the gap between the myth and the day-to-day.
A post-Oscar reality check
Asked by Discussing Film how the win influenced the projects he chose next, Fraser pushed back on the idea that a statue turns you into a human script magnet.
'The fallacy is you have the pick of the litter.'
He explained that it still comes down to what’s actually getting made in the first place. Translation: no matter how shiny the trophy, you can’t pick from movies that don’t exist.
The format wars? He’s not precious about it
Fraser also waded into the ongoing muddle over streaming vs. theaters vs. TV and basically shrugged. He’s platform-agnostic and even joked he’s fine watching on his phone on the subway. The bigger point: the industry is still figuring out how we all consume movies and shows, and it isn’t settled yet. But to him, the constant is simple — good work is still good work. Nobody sets out to make a dud, and with 'The Rental Family,' he feels confident they made something that delivers.
What actually changed after the win
In a separate chat with AP News, Fraser said the immediate aftermath wasn’t some seamless glide into a dream slate. He was, surprisingly, between agents for a stretch and searching for that elusive 'unicorn' project — something original that hadn’t been run into the ground. Hikari, the filmmaker behind 'The Rental Family,' gave him a smart path out of that post-award limbo and into a project that made sense for this moment.
He also made a point of saying that on Oscar night, it genuinely could have gone to any of the other nominees. Still, once that envelope opened, he felt the air shift — a sense that things would be different from then on, even if it wasn’t the fairytale version people imagine.