Brendan Fraser

Brendan Fraser is an Academy Award winner whose nuanced performances and compelling role choices have earned widespread acclaim. He starred in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, which premiered in December 2022 and earned him several major awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actor. Upcoming projects include Pressure, where he will portray Dwight D. Eisenhower; Rental Family, directed by Hikari; and Sacrifice by Romain Gavras.
Recent work includes Steven Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move, Doom Patrol, and Condor. Other credits include Brothers, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Showtime’s The Affair, The Field, Texas Rising, Gimme Shelter, Escape from Planet Earth, The Nut Job, and Whole Lotta Sole.
Fraser starred in Journey to the Center of the Earth, the first live-action feature filmed entirely in 3D, which grossed over $100 million domestically. He is widely known for his iconic role as Rick O’Connell in The Mummy franchise, which grossed over $1.4 billion worldwide.
He made his Broadway debut in Elling and appeared in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Four Dogs and a Bone. Fraser was born in Indianapolis and studied acting at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.

Ellen Burstyn

Triple Crown winner Ellen Burstyn won a Tony in 1974 for “Same Time, Next Year,” an Oscar in 1974 for “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” and an Emmy in 2008-09 for “Law & Order: SVU.” She has been nominated five other times for an Oscar, and six other times for an Emmy. Ellen has appeared on Broadway, off-Broadway and regional theatre for more than five decades.

Ellen is the co-president of the famed Actors Studio. In 2006, her memoir, Lessons in Becoming Myself, became a national best-seller. She also lectures around the country on a wide variety of topics.

Darren Aronofsky

Darren Aronofsky (born February 12, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York) is an acclaimed American film director, screenwriter, and producer known for his psychologically intense and often surreal films. He studied film and social anthropology at Harvard University and earned an MFA in directing from the American Film Institute Conservatory. His senior thesis film, Supermarket Sweep (1991), was a Student Academy Award finalist.

Aronofsky's feature film debut, the surrealistic sci-fi thriller Pi (1998), won him the Best Director award at the Sundance Film Festival and an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. He gained further critical acclaim for Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Wrestler (2008), and Black Swan (2010), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Black Swan also received a Best Picture nomination. Other notable films include The Fountain (2006), Noah (2014), and Mother! (2017). His 2022 film, The Whale, earned Brendan Fraser an Academy Award for Best Actor.

Aronofsky often employs a distinctive "hip-hop montage" technique characterized by quick-cut editing, extreme close-ups, and split-screen effects. He has directed six actors in Oscar-nominated performances, with Natalie Portman (Black Swan) and Brendan Fraser (The Whale) winning. He founded the production company Protozoa Pictures in 1997.