Hundreds of film festival attendees got to spend Valentine’s Day with actor Brendan Fraser Tuesday evening as he was honored with the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s American Riviera Award at the Arlington Theatre, celebrating his most recent performance in “The Whale.”

Known for his roles in a range of movies from “Encino Man” and “George of the Jungle” to “The Mummy” and “The Quiet American,” among others, Fraser has been acting for over 30 years and it was his role as Charlie in the 2022 film “The Whale” that has earned him his first Academy Award nomination this year.

Fraser said it was the plays he saw as a child during family trips in London that first made him want to act.

“It opened my eyes to a world of wonder. It was the biggest, best toybox my kid brain could imagine, and it told stories,” Fraser said. “I remember thinking ‘I want to do that; how do you do that? How do you get on that stage?’”

Fraser spoke on the range of roles he’s portrayed, starting even from the beginning of his career, with two of his early films — comedy “Encino Man” and drama “School Ties”— released back-to-back differing greatly.

“What it did was clearly established that guy’s career in a way that said, ‘Hey Hollywood, I can do broad comedy, and hey look, this is some more sensitive, dramatic work,’” Fraser said. “People don’t stop unless they see a stop sign so you have to be pretty specific, and this was an opportunity for me to have that calling card.” 

Throughout his career, in both comedic and serious roles, he’s played several fish-out-of-water characters, which Fraser discussed during his conversation Tuesday with moderator Pete Hammond, chief film critic and awards columnist for Deadline.

“I think that it really made sense to me,” Fraser said. “I latched onto the notion of not knowing what you don’t know until you know it.”

Fraser’s most recent film, “The Whale,” for which he has been nominated for an Academy Award for best actor, follows Charlie, a reclusive, obese English teacher as he tries to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter.

The film has been met with a mixture of responses, from critical, polarized reviews to high praise, but Fraser said he and the rest of the crew tried to approach the film with respect and sensitivity.

“To create Charlie, it absolutely required expensive costuming and prosthetic makeup to depict a man whose body was hundreds and hundreds of pounds and do it with dignity and respect and not have the quotation marks around it that we’ve seen in films previously,” Fraser said. “This character hasn’t been created for big screen — as far as any search I’ve done — before in this way, this much respect and attention to detail.”

He added that “The Whale” is meant to open minds and address the way people talk to and treat each other.

“You see that he’s infinitely human, just as human as you and I or anyone else, although his story is one that’s told behind closed doors in a dark apartment somewhere in northern Idaho, and it’s a story that’s all over the country — probably the world too — and one that we don’t often see,” Fraser said. “It’s a journey of redemption, it’s an attempt at salvation. … It’s a film that always had the intentions to change hearts and minds.”

Following the conversation on his career, actress Sarah Michelle Gellar presented the American Riviera Award to Fraser.

“When I watched his performances, he made me want to be a better actor, then I got to meet him and know him, and he makes me a better person,” Gellar said.

“Brendan, the person, has the same adventurous heart that you saw in “The Mummy,” he has the same depth of loyalty as “George of the Jungle,” the same ridiculous sense of humor as “Encino Man” — seriously that’s not a joke, that is true — and like Charlie in “The Whale,” the same desperate longing to do the right thing for the people that he loves.”

Fraser thanked his family, the people he’s worked with over the years, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and several others before closing out the night with a Valentine’s Day wish.

“My V-Day wish to you — for each of you and for all of Santa Barbara’s artists maybe wanting for a course correction at sea — I wish that a powerful wave of love also propels you, as it has done me, to get to where you need to be,” Fraser said. “Take it from me, it’s a wave that you’re going to want to catch and ride as far as you can and then pay it forward.”

The American Riviera Award honors “outstanding achievement in American film,” and past recipients include Kristen Stewart, Delroy Lindo, Renee Zellweger, Viggo Mortensen, Sam Rockwell, Jeff Bridges, Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Robert Redford, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Annette Bening, Sandra Bullock, Mickey Rourke, Tommy Lee Jones, Forest Whitaker, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

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