The Whale director defends casting Brendan Fraser following criticism.
, director Darren Aronofsky explained why he didn't cast an actor who was already that size.
"There was a chapter in the making of this film where we tried to research actors with obesity," he said."Outside of not being able to find an actor who could pull off the emotions of the role, it just becomes a crazy chase. Like, if you can’t find a 600-pound actor, is a 300-pound actor or 400-pound actor enough?
"From a health perspective, it’s prohibitive," he added, referring to the film's intense production."It’s an impossible role to fill with a real person dealing with those issues."Screenwriter Samuel D Hunter also touched on people interpreting the title to be an attack on overweight people, when it is a reference to how Moby Dick – the sperm whale who is the main antagonist in Herman Melville's 1851 novel of the same name – features heavily in the plot.
"The title deliberately pokes at some people’s prejudices. I wasn’t surprised by the blowback, because of the history of the way that obesity is treated on film. And we live in cynical and reactionary times," he said."To be clear, this is not a story about everybody who grapples with obesity. It’s how it presented in me."is set for release on December 9 in US cinemas. A UK release date has not been announced yet.
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