Daniel Franzese feuded with Brendan Fraser in The Whale

In a film season marked by drama, spittakes and “movies that feel like movies” (Will we ever stop worrying darling?), only a few newcomers could escape the endless cycle of discourse. Least of all that of Darren Aronofsky The whalewhich stars Brendan Fraser as the £600 English teacher who has divided critics and fans since it premiered (to six minutes standing ovation) at the Venice International Film Festival earlier this month.

Daniel Franzese, who played them iconic Candy Cane King Damien a mean girlsHe voiced his own thoughts and summed up both sides of this controversy in a recent interview with Schön persons. “I love Brendan Fraser, [so] I’m very conflicted,” he said. “When I saw him stand up so humbly in Venice and have that moment, I was very happy for him. He is a lovely man. And it’s great. But why? Why go up there and wear a fat suit to play a 400 pound. strange man?”

Franzese specifically cited the lack of representation he and his “big queer guys” have faced in the industry in the past. “Finally having the chance to be in a prestigious film, potentially nominated for an award, that tells stories about people who look like us? That’s the dream,” he said. “So when they keep going back and casting someone like Brendan Fraser, we’re like, ‘What the…?’ We can’t take it!”

He continued, “But I think you can go ahead and wear a big suit and do what you have to do and get your Oscar. We just sit here and wait.”

Meanwhile, Franzese continues to learn more about herself as the fabulous Donna Bellissima RuPaul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race. As he recently said The Houston ChronicleDrag “made me confront things that I think made me uncomfortable about… It was interesting to be in a place where I could push my femininity as far as possible and celebrate that and see how it’s done.”

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Still roles like Fraser’s The whale are the actor’s bread and butter. When he asked, “I mean, who knows more about being an obese gay man than an obese gay man?”