Brendan Fraser vows to find 'naked man' SAG Award 'some pants' after Best Actor win at 2023 SAG Awards

The Brendan Fraser renaissance continues!

The 54-year-old took home the prize Best Male Actor in a Motion Picture at the 2023 SAG Awards on Sunday night. Fraser won for his critically proclaimed portrayal of a morbidly obese man in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale, adapted from Samuel Hunter's play of the same name.

"This is good — a naked man making up his mind to smile or to frown, like an actor," Fraser said, referencing the statuette he had just won. "I will treasure this, but never more than what I treasured, that I used to keep in my wallet, which was my SAG card that I earned in 1991. It made me feel like I belonged. We're actors; we all want to belong a tribe. If you told that guy back then I'd be standing here right now, I wouldn't have believed you."

In the category, Fraser was up against Austin Butler for Elvis, Colin Farrell for The Banshees of Inisherin, Bill Nighy for Living, and Adam Sandler for Hustle.

While Fraser was an early frontrunner for an Oscar, in recent weeks, fellow nominees Farrell and Butler seemed to be battling it out for that status. Fraser's win shakes things up again, considering that actors are the largest voting body of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

"I never would've believed that I would've been offered the role of my life in this character Charlie in The Whale," Fraser continued. "He's someone who is on a raft of regrets but is in a sea of hope. I've been at that sea, and I've rode that wave lately. And it's been powerful and good, and I've also had that wave smash me right down to the ocean floor and drag my face along there and wind up on some strong beach in a different world wondering, 'Where am I now?'"

The Whale has earned Fraser the best reviews of his career, earning him his first nomination for Best Actor at the SAG Awards (and the Oscars as well).

"I just want to let you know for real, all the actors who've gone through that, who are going through that, I know how you feel," he concluded. "Believe me, if you just stay in there, and put one foot in front of the other, you'll get to where you need to go. Have courage."

Fraser had stepped away from acting and public life through most of the 2010s, in part because of mental fallout from going public with sexual assault allegations against a former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 2003, but The Whale has marked the peak of a career resurgence and his return to movie stardom.

"You're allowed to take risks in art," he previously told EW. "You should go toward the danger, where the most growth will come, and often where the most interesting choices are made."

He closed by promising to go find his new trophy some pants.

Check out the full list of 2023 SAG Awards winners .

Check out more from EW's The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best films.

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