Brendan Fraser brought to tears as The Whale premieres at Venice Film Festival

Footage of “unrecognisable” star Brendan Fraser at the premiere of The Whale has shown the actor overcome with emotion as the crowd erupted in applause.

Brendan Fraser is already garnering Oscar buzz for his first role in almost a decade – and fans are ready for “The Brenaissance”.

The actor made a rare red carpet appearance for the premiere of The Whale at the Venice Film Festival over the weekend, and was overcome with emotion as he received an “eight-minute standing ovation” when his name appeared in the credits, The Independent reported.

The Mummy star Fraser, 53, underwent a dramatic physical transformation and donned prosthetics to portray a 270kg man in Darren Aronofsky’s psychological drama.

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Fraser and girlfriend Jeanne Moore on the red carpet for the film’s premiere. Picture: Getty Images

Variety’s Ramin Setoodeh tweeted footage of the standing ovation for Fraser after the film aired for the first time, revealing The Whale was so well received, the actor was unable to leave the theatre.

In the clip, the famously modest star appears close to tears as he accepts the praise, kicking out his leg in a mock “shucks” and nodding in thanks.

The standing ovation for #TheWhale was so enthusiastic, Brendan Fraser tried to leave the theater but the crowd’s applause made him stay. #Venezia79pic.twitter.com/ZZ0vbFX7Rl

— Ramin Setoodeh (@RaminSetoodeh) September 4, 2022

Aronofsky’s film is adapted from a play by Samuel D. Hunter that focuses on the life of a man living with obesity named Charlie, who is seeking to reunite with his estranged teenage daughter, played by Stranger Things star Sadie Sink, after abandoning his wife and child for a gay lover. Charlie became morbidly obese after developing a compulsive eating disorder to deal with his lover’s death.

It marks Brendan’s first lead role in a movie since straight-to-DVD thriller Breakout in 2013, with fans primed for his major Hollywood comeback for many months, since he went viral in a rare interview on TikTok last year.

Fraser said he wanted to be ‘unrecognisable’ for the role. Picture: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

Fraser told Variety in a piece published last week that he took on this role of Charlie in The Whale to push himself.

“I wanted to know what I was capable of,” he said.

Fraser, who has not had any major roles in more than a decade, said he wanted to fully immerse himself in Charlie’s character and become “unrecognisable”.

The Whale cast: Brendan Fraser, Hong Chau, director Darren Aronofsky, Sadie Sink and author of the original play Samuel D. Hunter. Picture: John Phillips/Getty Images

“If there’s no risk, then why bother?” Fraser said. “I want to learn from the people I’m working with at this point in my career.

“I’ve had such variety, a lot of high highs and low lows, so what I’m keen for, in the second half of my time doing this, is to feel like I’m contributing to the craft and I’m learning from it.

“This is a prime opportunity. I wanted to disappear into it. My hope was that I would become unrecognisable.”

The actor also has had roles this year in Martin Scorsese’s latest western film Killers Of The Flower Moon and played the leading antagonist in HBO’s now-cancelled Batgirl movie as Garfield Lynns – the villain known as Firefly.