Brendan Fraser received an Academy Award for his role in The Whale on Sunday night.
The beloved 54-year-old actor appeared humbled on the stage at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles as he scooped up an Oscar in the Best Actor category.
The Hollywood legend, who recently returned to acting in an epic comeback after years of staying away from the limelight, delivered an emotional speech in which he thanked his supporters while fighting back his tears.
“Thank you, thank you. So this is what the multiverse looks like. Oh. My goodness,” The Mummy star joked.
“I thank the academy for this honor and for our studio a-24 for making such a bold film. And – I’m grateful to Darren [director] for throwing me a creative lifetime and hauling me aboard the good ship The Whale.
“It was written by Samuel D. Hunter who is our lighthouse. Gentlemen, you laid your whale-sized hearts bare so that we could see into your souls like no one else could do and it is my honor to be named alongside you in this category.”
Fraser, who portrayed a 600-pound gay English teacher known as Charlie in the 2022 drama, continued:
“I want to tell you that only whales can swim at the depth of the talent of Hong Chau, and I started in this business 30 years ago, and things – they didn’t come easily to me, but there was a facility that I didn’t appreciate at the time until it stopped. And I just want to say thank you for this acknowledgement. Because it couldn’t be done without my cast.”
Paying a tribute to the rest of the cast, Fraser admitted things wouldn’t be possible without them while comparing the journey to completing the movie to “a diving expedition at the bottom of the ocean and the air on the line to the surface is on a launch being watched over by some people in my life, like my sons.”
The Oscar comes after Fraser’s latest movie received a 14-minute standing ovation during its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
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