Fifty-seven-year-old Oscar winner Brendan Fraser got candid about his decades-long Hollywood journey in an interview with AARP The Magazine last month, telling the outlet: “Before The Whale, I had everything to prove. And now, to be honest, not so much.”
According to Myechia Minter-Jordan, CEO of AARP, the 50-and-older age segment is the fastest-growing demographic across the globe. For Fraser, a Hollywood mainstay of 35 years whose career has been shaped by major obstacles including depression and long stretches of work drought, a career turning point came three years ago: he earned his first Academy Award nomination (and eventual win) for leading Darren Aronofsky’s critically celebrated drama The Whale. In his Oscar acceptance speech, Fraser thanked Aronofsky “for throwing me a creative lifeline.”
In his conversation with AARP, Fraser delves deeper into his full professional arc, sharing his biggest career highs, devastating personal setbacks, and the persistent ambition that kept him going through middle age.
Fraser has been a household-name leading man for decades, with credits ranging from early hits Encino Man and George of the Jungle to the blockbuster The Mummy franchise and his Oscar-winning turn in The Whale. But he still looks back on his very first paid gig: working as a mascot for a Seattle storage company, earning $14 an hour. “I’ve never been flipped off more in my life,” he said of the early role.
Slowly but steadily, Fraser booked more acting work, climbing from tiny bit parts like “Sailor Number One” all the way to A-list status and headlining major Hollywood blockbusters.
He also opened up about his struggle with depression that began after a 2003 incident, when he alleged the president of the Foreign Press Association groped him at an industry event. Speaking on what he learned about prioritizing mental health after the experience, he shared: “I’ve learned to check in with myself and constantly reevaluate what’s important. And you also need to ask for help when you need it. Early on, I didn’t know you could ask for help. I only saw the stigma of it. I was afraid to say, ‘I need a hand.’”
Fraser explained he fell back into a dark place during the 2010s, when he entered a prolonged career lull despite his A-list status—even though he never actually stopped working. The AARP The Magazine profile calls this a “less star-studded” period in which “he wasn’t connecting with audiences the way he once had.” Of that quiet stretch, Fraser told the magazine: “The silence in a career can be deafening.”
