When “The Whale” came out in 2022, most of the attention was focused on Brendan Fraser’s triumphant performance. While the film’s directing and writing went largely unrecognized during awards season, Fraser won the Academy Award for best actor. He wouldn’t have been able to do it in a vacuum, though, and it’s largely thanks to the film’s supporting players like Hong Chau, Sadie Sink, and Ty Simpkins that he was able to do his best work.
Simpkins co-stars in the film as Thomas, the Christian missionary who continually dogs Fraser’s Charlie, hoping that he can convince him to embrace the will of God. “The Whale” marked Simpkins’s return to significant parts in big-time Hollywood pictures.
Aronofsky told Vanity Fair about the process for casting Simpkins as Thomas in 2023. “Right before we were about to start to rehearse, Mary Vernieu, our casting director, was like, ‘Oh, there’s this one guy, Ty Simpkins. He was a child actor,”‘ the director said. “But he hadn’t acted in a while. He was kind of taking a break from it for a while. But he got on tape, and the next day he got on a plane and joined us in New York, where we shot the film, and he was great.” Aronofsky praised Simpkins for his vulnerability and comedic timing in particular.
