History Trivia / TheWhale

** Brendan Fraser went through similar struggles to Charlie after his career declined in the mid 2000s; his wife divorced him, he was in hospital for multiple injuries that left him unable to do action heavy roles, and he struggled with the trauma of being sexually assaulted by Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Philip Berk, which led to him being blacklisted by many studios, all of which led to him becoming severely depressed and disappearing from the spotlight for many years. This hasn't gone unnoticed by many fans and reviewers, who have pointed out the similarities.

* CareerResurrection: For Brendan Fraser. He'd been out of the spotlight for over a decade and while he'd started to rebuild his career with TV work like ''Series/DoomPatrol2019'', this was his major return to the public and the Oscar win only solidified it. Darren Aronofsky even invoked this trope, saying he wanted for Charlie an actor who really had been through such struggles and who could benefit from the new success.

* PlayingWithCharacterType: Sadie Sink plays around with her usual typecasting as TroubledButCute teens. While in ''Series/StrangerThings'' and ''Film/FearStreet'', her JerkWithAHeartOfGold personas emphasise the latter, Ellie is considerably less sympathetic. While she does have a FreudianExcuse [[spoiler: and seems to improve by the end]], part of the sadness comes from Charlie trying to believe his daughter is a better person than she actually is.

* AbilityOverAppearance: Liz was not intended to be any ethnicity and her background was not specified in the script. Creator/HongChau won the part, and a line about Liz being adopted was added in.

** Brendan Fraser went through similar struggles to Charlie after his career declined in the mid 2000s; his wife divorced him, he was in hospital for multiple injuries that left him unable to do action heavy roles, and he struggled with the trauma of being sexually assaulted by Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Philip Berk, which led to him being blacklisted by many studios, all of which led to him becoming severely depressed and disappearing from the spotlight for many years. This hasn't gone unnoticed by many fans and reviewers who have pointed out the similarities.

** Samuel D. Hunter based Charlie on himself, a gay writing instructor struggling with a eating disorder and self-isolating in his apartment.

* WriteWhatYouKnow: Samuel D. Hunter based Charlie on himself; he's openly gay, taught writing at an Idaho university, and battled a binge eating disorder.

* CareerResurrection: For Brendan Fraser. He'd been out of the spotlight for over a decade and while he'd started to rebuild his career with TV work like ''Series/DoomPatrol 2019'', this was his major return to the public and the Oscar win only solidified it. Darren Aronofsky even invoked this trope, saying he wanted for Charlie an actor who really had been through such struggles and who could benefit from the new success.

* WriteWhatYouKnow: Samuel D. Hunter based Charlie on himself; he's openly gay, taught writing at an Idaho university and battled a binge eating disorder.