Apple
Following the release of Killers of the Flower Moon, there were some movie fans online who were critical of the performance of recent Best Actor winner Brendan Fraser.
Introduced in the third act of the film, Fraser plays W. S. Hamilton, a boisterous, showy Mid-Atlantic-accent-havng lawyer brought in to defend Robert De Niro’s villainous William Hale.
Not realizing that he probably put forth the exact performance that Martin Scorsese was asking of him, some people thought the 54-year-old Academy Award winner was overacting.
Scorsese himself, however, has since chimed in to defend Fraser, albeit in a bit of a backhanded compliment way.
“We thought he’d be great for the lawyer and I admired his work over the years,” Scorsese said of Fraser. “He actually came in for I think a couple of weeks on the picture, particularly when it was in our later shoot. We had a really good time working together, particularly with Leo. Particularly in the scene where he says, ‘They’re putting a noose around your neck, he’s saving you dumb boy.’”
Scorsese then specifically mentioned how Fraser’s intimidating size, which he referred to as his “girth”, factored into his casting.
“Really for us, when we heard that… he brought the whole scene down on Leo. It was perfect. And he had that girth. He’s big in the frame at that time. He’s a wonderful actor and he was just great to work with.”
Killers of the Flower Moon, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, and more, is now playing in movie theaters across the United States.
The film, which made $23 million domestically in its opening weekend, the third-biggest opening of Scorsese’s legendary career, will also begin streaming on AppleTV+ (who co-produced the film with Paramount) at some point in the coming months.