In 4 days, the results of this year's Oscars will be decided.
For Chinese audiences, in addition to paying attention to whether Michelle Yeoh can defeat the big demon Cate Blanchett to win the queen, the competition between the two actor seed players has also attracted attention.
Colin Farrell vs "Disfigured Male God" Brandon Fisher.
Who would have thought that this male god of action-adventure films, who was once popular with "The Mummy", played a character weighing nearly 300 kilograms in "Whale", standing up and walking, these ordinary actions are huge challenges and torture for him.
The fat around the character flows like butter, as if it will flow from his body at any moment.
In the movie, the character finally reconciles with his daughter and leaves to complete his spiritual redemption.
Outside the movie, Fisher, who has been refusing the unspoken rules of Hollywood bigwigs, being banned, gaining weight due to injury treatment, and "disappearing" for 15 years, received 6 minutes of applause from the audience after the premiere at this year's Venice Film Festival.
When he bowed deeply to the audience at a slight loss, the once top fresh meat in Hollywood also completed his self-redemption with "disfiguring acting skills".
Undoubtedly, what Chinese audiences remember most is his performance in "The Mummy".
Just as there was no Ethan Hunt after Tom, no Byrne after Matt Dimon, and no O'Connor after Fisher.
There is no other reason why the audience can be so dedicated, the key is that he injects irreplaceable charm into the character.
For a thousand actors, there are a thousand O'Connor.
If this role is performed conventionally, it is likely to be a handsome and courageous, amorous, super capable of saving the world.
And Fisher's characteristic lies in two words: vigorous (child).
The character of O'Connor was played by him with a ruffle and a cute in the tumult.
Let the audience see a completely different sci-fi adventure film action hero from the past: Lotte, smelly fart, poisonous tongue, the sky falls as a quilt cover, and the move is extremely reliable.
This anti-hero image full of comedy elements is very different from the previous positive characters who are honest, serious, and close to perfect.
It is this uniqueness that gives the character its soul.
It was also with this role that Fisher once broke into the camp of Hollywood first-line stars, with a salary of $20 million.
Until injuries and shameless Hollywood bigwigs came unexpectedly, he encountered the longest adventure of his life, and it was not until many years later that he regained the attention of people with a breakaway role.
Prior to this, Fisher, who had been in the film for thirty years, had always been regarded as a vase actor with no acting skills, and had never won any major awards in the industry such as the Golden Globe Award or the Oscar, and was not even nominated.
But the sun finally illuminated those difficult days, those dark, bumpy, confused moments, and perhaps more interesting than the awards themselves, this legendary story.
Under the bumps of life, some people are scared, some are lazy, but there are also people like O'Connor in "The Mummy", crazy sand comes, do it with it!
Although Fisher plays many adventure hero roles, none of them are his own, which is more complex and legendary.
O'Connor defeats the High Priest Imoton, and Fisher defeats Hollywood, which is like an evil monster.
01 Adventure film male god
Those stories brewed in the wind always run through the long night and turn into legends.
People opened the legends in ignorance and found that there was a teenager in each legend.
Brandon Fisher, who has just debuted, is full of starlight.
With a height of 1.92 meters, deep and charming blue eyes, and an iconic chin, it is hard to ignore.
Since he first played the star-studded quarterback in Matt Damon, Chris O'Donnell, Ben Affleck and other star-studded "School Vice", he embarked on a long journey, not knowing the future and reckless of the consequences.
The film received a mediocre response, but Fisher attracted Hollywood attention in one fell swoop.
Soon he got a most effortless role - the sexy and toned "King of the Forest" Tarzan in Disney's live-action "Tarzan of the Forest".
Beautiful skin was his greatest weapon back then, and this movie takes his physical beauty to the extreme.
No one remembers the plot of the movie, but it perfectly shows the deep and charming blue eyes of Fisher at his peak, his long flowing and wild hair, and of course, his eight-pack abs.
The film's global box office that year reached 170 million US dollars, and when female audiences were fascinated by him, big contracts in Hollywood followed.
But Fisher didn't like the role, and later said in an interview with the magazine, "I looked at my body and felt like a walking steak." ”
But the stories of those teenagers, filled with water vapor from the forest, stimulated the hormones of a generation of audiences, and finally merged into the rough atmosphere of the Hollywood action-adventure era of the nineties.
"The Mummy" director Sommers got a film budget of $10 million at the beginning, yes, you read that right, but after seeing the script of the film, Universal felt that he could make a lot of money, and increased the budget to $80 million, and the special effects cost was about 15 million.
At that time, the salary of Hollywood first-line stars had reached 20 million US dollars, and it was obvious that the film could not afford it, so two second-tier actors, Brandon Ferscher and Rachel Weisz, were found.
Fisher plays the explorer O'Connor, with long diagonal bangs, without taking off a single piece of clothing throughout the process, and male hormones also overflow the screen.
As soon as the crew arrived in Morocco and the Sahara Desert to shoot, several crew members were bitten or stung by local wildlife, except for the hot weather, snakes, scorpions and spiders are difficult to deal with, especially poisonous snakes, "because if it bites you, at best, they will amputate your limbs". Of course, the solution is also simple, that is, when you see a snake, you run.
But the crew soon encountered bigger trouble than the snake, and during the filming of the opening scene where O'Connor was hanged, the scene where Fisher hung on a noose in the film to stop breathing was not acted, but really fainted, and got cardiac resuscitation on the spot. If he hadn't survived, this classic adventure wouldn't have been.
Surviving this level, Somos added a lot of comedy, romance and big scenes to the film, and every element was played beautifully, and he also shot magnificent and exciting fantasy scenes with an extremely limited budget.
The $15 million special effects production cost filmed the scene of wizards setting off sandstorms engulfing planes and snakes, insects, rats and ants besieging the city, making it a classic of ancient tomb exploration films in the early 21st century.
The screen CP composed of Fisher and Rachel Weissie, although it is a cliché plot of heroes saving beauty, but the character creation is simple and powerful, and both of them became popular stars overnight.
At this time, the moon over the Sahara is half-bent, and Fisher drinks the wine in his glass, and in the glass is the vast future.
"The Mummy" premiered in North America on Friday, and at 6 a.m. on Saturday, the producer called the director and said Universal wanted to shoot a sequel. In the end, the film set a global box office myth of $410 million.
In 2001, when Fisher starred in the sequel "The Mummy Returns", the salary had risen from 4 million to 12 million US dollars, and Tom's salary was only 20 million US dollars that year.
Fisher's next "Adventures in the Center of the Earth" is still successful, it seems that he has an endless future, handsome appearance, good movements, humor and ease...
But the hidden danger has long been buried.
In the first part, he directly went into shock and his life hung in the balance.
In the second part, he suffered a torn disc, broken ribs and knee injuries, and broke three ribs.
In the third part, he needs to wrap a bandage and ice on his body every day to continue filming.
At the same time, because he is positioned by Hollywood as a fantasy adventure action boy, he starred in mostly commercial blockbusters dominated by visual spectacles, and people will not care about his performance.
And the biggest crisis in life awaits him ahead.
02 "banned" by the big guy
Many viewers noticed that since 2008's "The Mummy 3", Fisher was not very active.
The most direct reason is the failure of "The Mummy 3".
This time the budget mentions an unprecedented $145 million for the series. The film starred in Chinese actors such as Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, Liang Luoshi, Wu Jing and so on. But actress Rachel Weisz refused the invitation because she had just given birth, and according to insiders, the reason she really resigned was that "the script sucks".
Although the stars gathered, the Western perspective of the whole film mixed with Chinese elements, the effect was quite embarrassing, the reputation was very dismal, and finally only got the global box office of 400 million US dollars, making Universal lose money.
Brandon Fisher has since been included in Hollywood's "box office poison".
To make matters worse, Fisher's injuries left by years of high-intensity action scenes in the 7 years after the end of the movie forced him to undergo laminectomy (the posterior arch that removes the vertebrae), partial knee replacement surgery, spinal surgery, and vocal cord surgery. At its worst, he had to walk on crutches.
Constant surgery and medication, the most obvious impact on his body is Fufu, and the red-top and white Hollywood, soon began to ridicule his figure, netizens made him into memes, has become Fisher's new label.
After bidding farewell to action movies, Fisher appeared in literary films such as "Gods and Beasts", "Quiet Americans" and "Crash", but the audience will not easily accept the transformation of an action star.
And the sequel to his "Adventures in the Center of the Earth", which once set a record of $244 million, has also changed, and the first movie starred by the new protagonist Dwayne Johnson is "The Mummy Returns" that Fisher stands at the peak.
To add insult to injury, in 2007 his marriage broke down and he had to pay up to $900,000 a year in alimony, but his income had gradually dwindled, and he gradually could not afford to pay support for his children, and eventually even applied to the court to demand a reduction in the cost of alimony.
His ex-wife took him to court, accusing him of hiding his income, which was a joke.
But all this still does not explain the rapid fall of an action star.
Until 2018, in an interview with GQ magazine, Fisher told a surprising thing:
He was sexually harassed by an industry boss.
According to Brandon, at a luncheon in 2003, Philip Burke, president of the Foreign Press Association of Hollywood and the organizer of the Golden Globes, took advantage of the mess to touch his buttocks and put his hands in his pants.
"I was scared and aggrieved, I felt like a child, like a ball in my throat, I thought I was going to cry."
Fisher did not have the courage to go public at the time, so he could only insist that the agent write an email asking the other party to apologize in writing in private. The other party said that he made up the facts, and later admitted that he was only "jokingly" grabbing Fisher.
Even more outrageous, since 2003, Brandon has rarely been invited to events held by the association, including the Golden Globes.
And in February 2018, at the Golden Globes Awards shortly after the outbreak of the Hollywood anti-sexual assault movement, the Hollywood boss was happily sitting among the actors wearing black dresses and anti-sexual assault logos.
Different from the Chinese audience's impression of Hollywood's industrialization, Hollywood is a huge small circle, offending a big guy is equivalent to being blocked by a circle of big guys, and since then his work offer calls have become less and less.
In the following years, it was difficult for him to receive commercial blockbusters, but in the third season of the American drama "Extramarital Affairs", he appeared as a fat and bulging prison guard, losing his appearance and figure, but his acting skills won him applause.
In 2019, he starred in the DC American drama "Doom Patrol", playing mecha man Cliff Stiller.
Once a Hollywood A-list action star, he has become the protagonist and even supporting role in American dramas, and everyone thought that Fisher's career was over, until he was reborn again.
03 "O'Connor" returns
Fate is mysterious, if Fisher was still starring in those risky action movie productions that cost no acting skills, Darren Aronofsky, the director who filmed "Black Swan" and "The Wrestling King", would probably never have thought of looking for him to play "Whale".
But when he dragged on for 10 years for the film, constantly looking for the actor to play the protagonist Charlie, he occasionally saw Fisher's performance in the Brazilian small-budget film "Journey in the Night", in fact, a trailer.
Then the two meet and the role is set.
Charlie, played by Fisher, is an English teacher who teaches writing through online lessons.
Because the same-sex lover abandoned his family, after the death of his lover, Charlie chose to overeat and seek death, weighing 600 pounds, that is, 272 kilograms, and his life was in danger at any time.
"Moby Dick" is the only article that can soothe Charlie's heart. And he wears a blue dress, sits on the sofa chair every day and eats wildly, like a whale opening its mouth and swallowing all the high-calorie food into its belly.
This character is so fat that he is clumsy to even hold things with his hands. Once the food falls at your feet, you can no longer pick it up yourself.
The disappearance of his lover and the guilt of his former family made Charlie give up his life. He even had to promise to hand over his entire inheritance and write a thesis in exchange for his daughter's contact, and the so-called companionship was nothing more than a rant at him, and even secretly put sleeping pills in his food.
The entire film is almost an indoor scene, and the director pushes close-ups into Fisher's face in an indoor enclosed space.
Charlie's role is more complex than Fisher's previous roles.
In the eyes of outsiders, this is a person who is rotten inside and out, but in fact the character has a heart that longs for redemption.
The single closed performance environment increases the difficulty of performance. But Fisher portrayed this man who suffered from drugs, alcohol and mental torture, and his eyes and the state of saying sorry all the time have emitted a state of decay of expired food. Even just the look in his eyes and facial expressions can convey the despair of a dying person.
And as the story progresses, the audience will go from disgust and curiosity to step by step into the character's heart, and even can't help but feel sad because of a bending action of the character.
My two favorite scenes, one is Charlie in despair but does not forget to feed the wild birds outside the house.
Determined to die, he retains a little light that illuminates the dark hearts.
First, in the last moments of his life, he struggled to get up and try to move towards his daughter, and his feelings for his family made him complete the final struggle at the moment of his life, like a beluga whale fighting a tsunami.
Fisher did contribute to the actor-level performance, making people believe that he was the beluga whale.
After entering the awards season, Fisher appeared on the covers of various weekly magazines again and again in huge clothes, his performance was widely acclaimed, and won several awards, and was favored by many forecasters to become the winner of this year's Oscar.
It is almost certain that without his previous sad experiences, such a deep understanding and interpretation of this role would not have been possible.
It's cruel to say that. But acting is about cutting the actor's own heart.
Teenagers have their own fairy tales, and those fairy tales will eventually leave a mark.
04 Slap Hollywood in the face
After suffering the triple torment of career, life and spirit, once fell to the bottom of life, and was completely abandoned by Hollywood manufacturers, if Fisher is as slumped as the protagonist in "Whale", Hollywood will not be surprised at all, there are too many stars who have fallen over the years, and there is no shortage of him.
But no one expected that he stood up and happened to meet A24, an independent production company outside the Big Five in Hollywood, and Darren Aronofsky, who did not look at the face of the big guy.
He eventually changed his life against the heavens, and the plot was interpreted like a movie.
He once again specially added weight to the play, spending 5-6 hours a day wearing special effects makeup, and with the help of the staff to get up, sit down, and walk.
He talked to many people who had undergone bariatric surgery and watched countless documentaries and videos to seriously understand their journey.
In the end, he became Charlie. His performance captured the hearts of the audience.
The film has exceeded $10 million in North America since its release, which is only a fraction of his "Mummy" series that year, but as an independent small-budget film, the film has been a success.
Hollywood has never lacked for disfiguring performances, such as the image and performance of the goddess Charlize Theron in "The Devil Head".
Colin Farrell, who competed with Fisher for the Best Actor trophy this year, played the penguin in "Batman".
"Batman" Christian Bale is a famous spring man in Hollywood.
But these are different from Fisher's performance, because like Charlie in the story who waits for death and redemption, Fisher also performs with a heart born to die.
After the film's release, in a video conversation with fans, after hearing the interviewer's words "We all support you", the returning star choked up with excitement and tearfully thanked everyone for their support.
Whether or not he can be Oscar or not, he has proven himself.
And the Hollywood boss Burke, who refused to admit to doing something to him, was removed from the association in 2021 for discriminating against black people, although it was not because of sexual harassment, but he can no longer cover the sky in Hollywood.
Next, Fisher's new film also has Martin Scorsese's "Killer of the Flower Moon", co-starring with Xiao Lizi and Robert De Niro.
As for the future, "The Mummy" will not look for him, but the new film will not worry.
If this story tells us anything.
First, effort is useful. If Fisher himself gives up, everything will be gone.
Second, you can't omit every step you take. Without the past, Fisher would not have this solid and relaxed acting skills of the present out of thin air.
Third, there is no ultimate answer to life, you have to find it yourself.
At this year's Toronto Film Festival, Brandon happened to meet Michelle Yeoh, who had collaborated with "The Mummy 3". Perhaps this is the group photo of this year's Oscar winners.
But if not, it's nothing.
Fifteen years of hardship and unwillingness have finally passed.
After winning the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor in a Movie, Fisher choked up and said his acceptance speech:
Charlie is a man full of regrets, but he is also in the ocean of hope, and I have also been to that powerful sea, riding the wind and waves, and I have been hit to the bottom of the sea, and I don't know where to go. Actors who are going through this, I know how you feel, but as long as you move forward with your feet and courage, you will get what you want.
I think that the core of this man's life story is actually that the whale swims in the sea, is the ice and fire tempering facing the world, unyielding, not retreating, not bowing his head, not saying defeat, never giving up hope.
In the end, the old, fat, and hair loss "O'Connor" finally found his happiness, and by the way, he gave Hollywood like an evil monster a beautiful punch.