Brendan Fraser is widely considered a top contender to win a best actor Oscar next month for his moving performance in The Whale, despite some critics raising eyebrows at how his character's obesity is handled in the film. One person who's sure of a Fraser victory at the Academy Awards is Howard Stern, whom Fraser sat down with on Tuesday for Stern's SiriusXM radio show. "You're gonna win—you know that, right?" Stern prodded Fraser, who humbly replied, "I don't know that." What the 54-year-old actor does know, however, is that he doesn't care that he didn't recently win one of the other big awards already handed out: a Golden Globe, per People. First, Fraser made sure to praise Austin Butler's GG win in the best actor category for Elvis, calling his fellow actor's honor "well deserved."
But he was always wary of his own nomination, considering his history with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which runs that awards show. Fraser accused former HFPA chief Philip Berk of sexually assaulting him at a Beverly Hills luncheon in 2003. Berk, now 89, has long denied Fraser's claim, but the actor says Hollywood essentially turned its back on him after he made his accusation—which is why he's now not interested in their trophies. "Get it or don't get it, doesn't matter," Fraser, who didn't attend this year's Golden Globes, told Stern. "What does matter is that it would mean nothing to me. I don't want it. I didn't ask to be considered even, that was presumed." He went on to say, "They needed me, I didn't need them. Because it wouldn't be meaningful to me. Where am I gonna put that hood ornament? What would I do with that?"
He added that what would be "meaningful" is if the HFPA released an apology "that made sense," and if the group would let him see the report on the probe he says they conducted into his personal affairs, which Fraser says they refused to let him see. After the 2018 GQ story in which Fraser accused Berk, Fraser says the HFPA wanted him to sign a joint statement noting that "although it was concluded that Mr. Berk inappropriately touched Mr. Fraser," the whole thing was a "joke," not a "sexual advance," per EW.com. Fraser refused. Berk, meanwhile, was kicked out of the HFPA in 2021 after he emailed an article to fellow members that described the Black Lives Matter movement as a "racist hate movement." (More Brendan Fraser stories.)
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