MOVIE NEWS – According to Dwayne Johnson, Brendan Fraser deserves the current wave of success and hopes that The whale‘s star wins the Oscar for best actor.

Early reviews of The Whale suggest that Brendan Fraser will be a strong contender for Best Actor at next year’s Oscars. The Darren Aronofsky-directed film hits theaters in December and sees Fraser in perhaps his most difficult and emotional role to date. He plays a 600-pound recluse who, after leaving his family years earlier to start a new life with a gay lover, hopes to reconnect with his teenage daughter (Sadie Sink) before it’s too late.

Earlier, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson posted on social media about the attention Fraser received based on his acclaimed performance in the film. He also shared a video of Fraser receiving a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival, bringing her eyes tears. In a new conversation with MTV News (via ScreenRant ), Johnson reiterated his support for Fraser, going so far as to say he’d like the Mummy Returns star to be on stage at the Oscars next year with the golden statuette in hand. As The Rock put it:

“I want him to go through with it, man. I want to see him on that Oscar stage and hold that crappy statue and give what I’m sure is going to be an amazing speech. When I was approached and asked to be in In The Mummy Returns, it was Brendan’s movie. He had to go along with it. He had no idea. We’d never met. We hadn’t even talked on the phone. And our director, Stephen Sommers, said, ‘Brendan loves the idea and he’s thrilled that you are in the movie. I just came from WWE. I had no acting experience outside of WWE. I had never been on a film set before and suddenly I was in the middle of the Sahara desert filming The Mummy Returns. And the star of the film gave his nod to accept the film. That meant a lot to me. I haven’t forgotten it many years later. I see them standing and applauding him for almost 10 minutes and he’s crying. It was beautiful, man.”

Brendan Fraser didn’t even meet The Rock while filming The Mummy

The Rock might appreciate Brendan Fraser vouching for him when it came to The Mummy Returns. What makes this decision even more special is that the two actors did not even work together on the set. Because CGI was used to incorporate Johnson’s character for the scenes with Fraser, they weren’t in the same building when filming took place, although Fraser still appreciates The Rock’s love now.

“I thought that was very nice of him,” Fraser said of Johnson’s support, via Variety. “I first met him at a reception after The Mummy Returns, and before that we hadn’t actually met in person, although we’d fought on screen. Every time I worked with him, he was just a piece of ribbon on a stick, so it was nice to be able to say, hey, man, what or? We’ll finally meet.”

Source: MovieWeb</ a