Montreal native Adrien Morot wins best hair and makeup Oscar for ‘The Whale’

Canadian makeup artist Adrien Morot has won an Oscar for his transformation of actor Brendan Fraser in “The Whale.”

Morot won the Oscar for best makeup and hairstyling alongside Judy Chin and Annemarie Bradley.

The Montreal-born designer helped transform Fraser into an obese man for the Darren Aronofsky film about a reclusive professor trying to reconnect with his daughter.

As part of the routine, the team glued several thick pieces of silicone onto Fraser’s face and body, before applying makeup.

“The Whale” received some criticism for its depiction of the character’s weight.

Though Morot acknowledged the complaints in a recent interview with The Canadian Press, he said his job was to make the prosthetic suit as authentic as possible.

“The Whale” is Morot’s fifth collaboration with Aronofsky following “Mother!,” “Noah,” “The Fountain,” and “White Boy Rick.”

“Our director Darren Aronofsky pushed us to new heights. Thank you,” Morot said on stage.

Also among the early Canadian winners was Toronto director Daniel Roher, whose film “Navalny” took home the best documentary prize.

Roher’s film is an investigative look into the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is now in a gulag in Russia and believed to be in solitary confinement.

“I would like to dedicate this award to ‘Navalny’ to all political prisoners around the world. Alexei — the world has not forgotten your vital message to us all. We cannot, we must not be afraid to oppose dictators and authoritarianism wherever it rears its head,” Roher said on stage.

In an interview ahead of the awards, Roher said all the attention the film is getting has been “bittersweet,” but he hopes that the spotlight will help keep Navalny alive.

Roher won alongside Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller and fellow Canadian Shane Boris.

The other documentary nominees included the Canada-U.S. co-production “Fire of Love,” which was co-produced by Boris.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2023.