Brendan Fraser stars in The Whale, based on the acclaimed play by Samuel D. Hunter PHOTO COURTESY OF: ADRIEN MOROT
PROSTHETICS MAKEUP ARTIST ADRIEN MOROT HELPED ACTOR BRENDAN FRASER TRANSFORM INTO AN OBESE MAN FOR THIS YEAR’S HIGHLY ANTICIPATED FILM 'THE WHALE.'
Artist Adrien Morot used digital renderings and 3D printing to build prosthetics for the actor. PHOTO COURTESY OF: A24
Originally from Canada, Academy Award-nominated artist Adrien Morot is currently based out of Valencia, where his Morot FX Studio is located. Known for building realistic prosthetics for more than 125 films, Morot says he always knew he wanted to become a makeup artist of some kind. “I’ve always been deeply passionate about movies,” he says. “I always knew I wanted to do something related to movies.” A talented illustrator from a young age, Morot would draw his favorite monsters or hyper-realistic portraits of beloved movie stars. Around age 10, he began playing with clay, mixing it with Vaseline to make it super sticky. He’d layer it onto his face to look like his favorite monsters.
In the highly anticipated awards contender The Whale, he exclusively worked with actor Brendan Fraser, who sat in a makeup chair for hours each day, to transform him into an obese man. The film is Morot’s fifth collaboration with director Darren Aronofsky. “Darren is a perfectionist; I love working with him,” he says. “He’s not for everyone because he’s such a demanding director and he never settles for good enough.” But being pushed to perfection is something Morot thrives on.
Through research, Morot realized that apart from characters in comedies, a mutant or monster, or a historical figure, body transformations—particularly those of an obese man—are not shown in a nuanced way on screen. “It’s never treated with the sensitivity that it should,” he says. “It’s a movie based on a theater play and they wanted to keep it the same way, so everything happens in Charlie’s (Brendan Fraser’s character’s) two-bedroom apartment. He’s there in almost every scene, and on top of that, it’s a drama and he’s a real person, he’s not an X-man or anything.” This meant one thing for Morot: The prosthetics and makeup had to be perfect. “If the makeup doesn’t work, or if it comes off as comedic, the movie doesn’t work at all,” he adds.
“If the makeup doesn’t work, or if it comes off as comedic, the movie doesn’t work at all.”–ADRIEN MOROT
With nearly 30 years of experience in the makeup effects industry, Morot chose to use digital sculptures and 3D printing to build the molds and make the prosthetics for the first time. “It’s super exciting because I believe we’re the first ones to do that,” he says. “It was COVID so we first met with Brendan in the driveway of his house in upstate New York and took 3D scanners with us and scanned him right there with masks on… then I flew back with the 3D data and started sculpting.” Using 3D molding software, Morot then cleaned up the data and created various versions of Charlie’s body, and he then submitted digital 3D models to Aronofsky. Once approved, pieces were printed individually for the entire face and body until they were perfect, then cast out of a very “lifelike medical-grade silicone,” he explains. “We wanted it to be as realistic as possible; we needed to find the right softness for the material.” For the movement, they ended up using orbits (small water-gel beads) “to fill in the void between the skin and the prosthetic, and that allowed to give us super-realistic movement,” he adds.
In terms of the final product, “the legs alone were about 40 pounds, each arm was about 15 to 20 pounds, and the actual body suit was about 100 pounds,” Morot says. To help Fraser from overheating, one of the body suit layers had a network of tubing where cold water was pumped throughout the day.
At the beginning of shooting, it took approximately four and a half hours to apply the prosthetics and makeup to Fraser’s face, then another hour or two to put him into the actual body suit. But toward the end of filming, Morot shaved off significant time. “It would maybe take two and a half hours, then putting him in the suit was about 45 minutes,” Morot shares. “[Fraser is] the greatest human being alive—he’s funny, he’s humble, he’s patient, he’s just the absolute best.”
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