We’re still weeks away from learning the 2023 Golden Globes nominees, but one of the Best Actor frontrunners is already signaling his intention to boycott the ceremony.
Brendan Fraser, who’s receiving career-best reviews for his dramatic turn in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale (in theaters Dec. 9), told GQ for its cover story on Wednesday that he will not attend the Golden Globes ceremony in January if he is nominated, as he is widely expected to be.
“I have more history with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association than I have respect for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association,” he said bluntly. “No, I will not participate.”
His reasoning, for those who have followed the former heartthrob’s rollercoaster career, is obvious: “It’s because of the history that I have with them,” he explained. “And my mother didn’t raise a hypocrite. You can call me a lot of things, but not that.”
In 2018, Fraser made headlines for another GQ profile in which he opened up for the first time about his ups and downs in Hollywood, including the toll years of stunt work had taken on his body. He also shared a disturbing allegation, accusing Philip Berk, a former president and member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organization behind the Golden Globes, of groping and assaulting him in 2003. (Berk has denied the allegation.)
After the article came out, the HFPA issued a statement saying, in part, “The HFPA stands firmly against sexual harassment and the type of behavior described in this article.” Fraser said in the latest profile that after promising to investigate, the HFPA ultimately came back to him with a proposed joint statement that would read, per the actor: “Although it was concluded that Mr. Berk inappropriately touched Mr. Fraser, the evidence supports that it was intended to be taken as a joke and not as a sexual advance.” Fraser refused to cosign the statement. Berk remained a voting member of the HFPA until 2021 when he was expelled for sharing an article describing Black Lives Matter as a “racist hate movement” in an email to his fellow members.
“I knew they would close ranks,” Fraser said of the HFPA. “I knew they would kick the can down the road. I knew they would get ahead of the story. I knew that I certainly had no future with that system as it was.”
Manny Carabel/Getty Images Brendan Fraser at a screening of ‘The Whale’
As for why his allegations failed to provoke more of a response from the HFPA and Hollywood at large (the Golden Globes enjoyed a full host of nominees in attendance that year), Fraser said, “I think it was because it was too prickly or sharp-edged or icky for people to want to go first and invest emotionally in the situation.”
Fraser said the incident “made me retreat” at the time, feeling like “something had been taken away from me.” Shortly after the original profile came out, the actor “heard from college friends, people I hadn’t worked with or seen going back 30 years of my career.” He remembered learning the article was trending on Twitter and thinking, “Oh, my God. Oh, f—, what have I done now?” He recalled: “It was people saying they like me. And they referenced that piece. I was like, Is this good, is this problematic? I don’t know. What did I do to earn this?”
While making his allegations public was a mostly positive experience, Fraser said it also left him feeling somewhat exposed. “I think the feeling that I have is, this is a hard one to describe, and not to be vulgar, but it’s like: I’ve seen you naked,” he explained. “It’s like people know what you look like, they know the story about you.” Overall though, he found the interview “liberating,” saying “it was a weight removed.” Speaking out about the allegations, Fraiser said, helped bring him a measure of closure. “That doesn’t mean I don’t get triggered every now and then, but then I come hang out back here,” he said, gesturing to the archery target in his backyard, according to the magazine, “And I’ll send a few arrows down range, and things feel better.”
Still, even a few years after the article came out, the alleged incident remains difficult to discuss, he acknowledged. “I would admit to feeling a little bit of a heart palpitation discussing this with you right now,” he told the reporter. “But it’s okay because my hope is that I can be recognized at this time in my life and career for my professional efforts, rather than the trope of the comeback kid as being a standard in culture, sports, coming from behind, being written off and then coming back.”
While the HFPA escaped Fraser’s allegations largely unscathed, the organization found itself on the wrong end of another firestorm just a few years later. A week before NBC’s 78th Golden Globes broadcast in 2021, the Los Angeles Times published an exposé revealing that the HFPA’s 87-person votership included no Black members. The show went on to register record-low ratings amid celebrity pushback, and NBC ultimately decided it wouldn’t air the Globes in 2022.
Since then, the HFPA has announced behind-the-scenes initiatives including the creation of an oversight committee and a partnership with the NAACP. They also added 103 new voters to their ranks, virtually doubling its size, including 21 new voters from diverse backgrounds. While the efforts led NBC to bring back the televised ceremony next year, Fraser remains dubious of the organization’s sincerity.
Asked if he believed in the reforms, the actor told GQ, “At the moment, no. Maybe time will tell if they’re going to…I don’t know what they’re going to do. I don’t know.”
Fraser also maintained the HFPA never offered him an apology, which the organization denied, reportedly telling GQ they’ve apologized twice, though, according to the outlet, Berk admitted in 2018 that a so-called apology letter he sent to Fraser contained no admission of wrongdoing.
If the HFPA does attempt to apologize to him, Fraser said, “according to rules of engagement, it would be my responsibility to take a look at it and make a determination at that time, if that became the situation. And it would have to be, I don’t know, what’s the word I’m looking for… sincere? I would want some gesture of making medicine out of poison somehow. I don’t know what that is. But that would be my hope.” Fraser also noted that he’s far from the only person who has felt wronged by the group, so if they were to make an apology, “I would expect that it would be something that would be meaningful for them too.”
EW has reached out to the HFPA for comment.
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