Brendan Fraser's deserved Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role came from an imaginary low. At the turn of the millennium, he had a promising career, and the whole world knew him thanks to The Mummy, in which he fought with death-dealing bugs and nearly died himself while filming a stunt scene (the props crew accidentally tightened his head off in a loop). But then he got divorced, got fat, underwent spinal and vocal cord surgeries, isolated himself in private, put on more pounds, and stopped filming. In 2022, an offer came from director Darren Aronofsky for the big dramatic role the actor had dreamed of for years – playing the Whale.