Brendan Fraser, in the thick of a viable Oscar campaign for his performance in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale,” sat with Howard Stern for a frank conversation. A key topic: his decision to sit out the Golden Globes this year. Though the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has undergone key internal changes since its myriad of recent scandals, Fraser is not really having it. The actor has claimed the group’s former head, Phillip Berk, groped him at an event in 2003. Berk, who was expelled from the HFPA in 2021 over his thoughts on the Black Lives Matter movement, has denied any wrongdoing.
While Fraser saluted Austin Butler for winning the Best Drama Actor category, he didn’t have many kind words for the group or its recognition.
“I found myself wondering is this a cynical nomination,” he told Stern of his 2023 nomination. “I couldn’t really tell because of my history with them and that I still have yet to see the results from their reformation. We all are still awaiting that, to tell you the truth…What does matter is that it would mean nothing to me. I don’t want it. I didn’t ask to be considered even, that was presumed.”
Fraser went on, saying, “They needed me, I didn’t need them. Because it wouldn’t be meaningful to me. Where am I gonna put that hood ornament? What would I do with that?”
The “Mummy” actor added that he didn’t expect or want his Hollywood colleagues to share in his boycott. “It’s my fight, no one else’s…I don’t need everyone to stand in solidarity with me,” slipping in a “maybe” and then saying, “It would be a calculated risk and it could also be trivialized very easily by the cynical view of this all.”
He wrapped it up by saying he didn’t want to talk about it too much, because it wasn’t important to him, but did concede that having Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy appear during the ceremony was impressive. “They let him have the stage, and that’s a powerful statement and something I can get behind and support.”
PREDICT the 2023 Oscar winners through March 12
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