Xuenou > Movies > Sadie Sink Had No Idea Who Brendan Fraser Was Before ‘The Whale’: ‘I Was Unfamiliar with His Work’
Sadie Sink Had No Idea Who Brendan Fraser Was Before ‘The Whale’: ‘I Was Unfamiliar with His Work’
Sadie Sink Had No Idea Who Brendan Fraser Was Before 'The Whale': 'I Was Unfamiliar with His Work',"Stranger Things" star Sadie Sink was unfamiliar with Brendan Fraser's filmography going into "The Whale."

Sadie Sink Had No Idea Who Brendan Fraser Was Before ‘The Whale’: ‘I Was Unfamiliar with His Work’

Sadie Sink had a strange first encounter with Brendan Fraser, mainly because she had no idea who the “Whale” actor was.

“I met Brendan for the first time about a year before the movie started filming,” Sink told Insider. “I didn’t know who he was. I was unfamiliar with his work, but I was just like, ‘Hey, nice to meet you.'”

The “Stranger Things” star first met Fraser during a table read for “The Whale.” Sink plays Fraser’s estranged daughter in the film adapted from Samuel D. Hunter’s play of the same name.

“I think [director] Darren [Aronofsky] and Sam [Hunter], the writer, wanted to hear it read aloud,” Sink said. “So they assembled a group of actors to just come to this theater in the East Village and read ‘The Whale.'”

Over time, she got to know Fraser “a little bit better” during production, but their character dynamic proved to be another hurdle.

“It’s such a tricky dynamic that our two characters have. But throughout the rehearsal process, he was such a trooper,” Sink said of Fraser. “Some of the things that [my character] Ellie has to say to him, it’s not easy stuff to take. But we just really, really trusted each other and because of that, I think we were fully comfortable with one another.”

And now Sink has plenty of Fraser’s past films to watch: “He’s got a lot of stuff,” she said. “I definitely have a lot more that I need to watch.”

Fraser recently revealed that he turned down starring in a sequel to Disney’s 1997 classic “George of the Jungle,” opting instead to star in “The Quiet American.”

“Careers go up and down on a valley and peak trajectory, but I believe that it’s always in the ascendancy,” Fraser told Entertainment Weekly. “I’ve never been that far away, is the short answer, and the [philosophical] answer is, really, was I away, or was everyone away from me? I’ll give you the answer: It doesn’t matter. I’m always making perse choices, and, hopefully, that keeps me and an audience interested. With a bit of distance, I think they’ve all cumulatively led up to the place I’m in now.”

Fraser told IndieWire’s Anne Thompson that he followed his inner compass to sign on to “The Whale.”

“I allowed myself to acknowledge the little voice inside you that says, ‘You must do this,'” Fraser said. “This is the role that made my teeth sweat, that I knew I wanted. It would be the hardest, most challenging thing I ever have seen come near my radar.”