Brendan Fraser has Critics’ Choice Awards audience in pieces during emotional speech-Kitty Chrisp-Entertainment – Metro

Brendan Fraser’s speech was easily the biggest moment from the awards ceremony (Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association)

A teary Brendan Fraser gave a heartfelt speech after winning best actor at the Critics’ Choice Awards as he described being pulled back from ‘the wilderness’.

The 28th annual awards ceremony in Los Angeles was jam-packed with Hollywood stars, and there was not a dry eye in the room after Brendan’s touching words.

The 54-year-old won the accolade for his performance in The Whale, which, he said, was about ‘finding the light in a dark place’.

Tears filled his eyes as the actor collected the award and praised his castmates Hong Chau and Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink, while also singling out The Whale’s director Darren Aronofsky.

‘This movie, The Whale, is about love. It’s about redemption. It’s about finding the light in a dark place,’ he said.

‘And I’m so lucky to have worked with an ensemble that is incredible.’

Addressing his director, he continued: ‘I was in the wilderness and probably should have left the trail of breadcrumbs.

‘But you found me, and like all the best directors you merely just showed me where I needed to be.’

Brendan shot to fame in the 1990s for his roles in The Mummy and George of the Jungle among other films before going quiet for several years, leaving people asking where he’d got to.

He has opened up about his health complications in the past, which could have been what Fraser meant by being ‘in the wilderness’.

The Looney Tunes actor was in and out of hospital for around seven years enduring a partial knee replacement, a vocal cord repair operation, as well as other surgeries, all apparently caused by overwork.

Michelle Yeoh and Brendan’s girlfriend Jeanne Moore were over the moon for the actor (Picture: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Champagne Collet & OBC Wines)

Chatting to GQ Magazine in 2018, he said: ‘I felt like the horse from Animal Farm, whose job it was to work and work and work.

‘Orwell wrote a character who was, I think, the proletariat. He worked for the good of the whole, he didn’t ask questions, he didn’t make trouble until it killed him.…

‘I don’t know if I’ve been sent to the glue factory, but I’ve felt like I’ve had to rebuild shit that I’ve built that got knocked down and do it again for the good of everyone. Whether it hurts you or not.’

But he’s back and glad to be, according to his speech, which given his health troubles was understandably an emotional moment for the actor.

Brendan and Stranger Things star Sadie Sink have become great pals whilst working on The Whale (Picture: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Champagne Collet & OBC Wines)

This comes just after Fraser boycotted the Golden Globes after previously alleging that, in 2003, he was sexually assaulted by Philip Berk, the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which organises the ceremony.

No charges were ever brought against Berk who denied the allegations, and the ceremony went on as normal.

As for the Critics’ Choice Awards, Fraser was a favourite to win several major awards for his role in the film, but this was his first win of awards season.

The Whale follows the story of Fraser’s obese English teacher Charlie as he tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter, played by Sink.

Brendan starred in The Mummy Returns circa 2001 before dropping off the grid (Picture: Moviestore/Shutterstock)

The actor added in his Critics’ Choice Awards speed: ‘To those like Charlie, who I played in this, if you in any way struggle with obesity, if you find yourself in a very dark sea…

‘…I want you to know that it’s good to have the strength to just go to the light, good things will happen.’

The room had Fraser’s back the whole way through his speech, and he even got a bit of a standing ovation from some of the star-studded audience.

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But it wasn’t all tears, as Fraser joked at the start of his speech as he recited a famous quote by Herman Melville that went, ‘There are only five critics in America, the rest are asleep,’ before he admitted that he doesn’t know what it means either.

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