He worked in television. The Affair, the Showtime drama about infidelity and its consequences, gave him a recurring role in its third and fourth seasons (2016 and 2017). He appeared in Trust, Danny Boyle’s FX limited series about the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, in 2018. He voiced the character of Cliff Steele/Robotman in both Titans and Doom Patrol, the DC Universe streaming series, across 2019-2023 — a commitment that ran, in its own way, parallel to The Whale’s production and awards run. He appeared in films: The Affair of the Necklace (2001) and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) in the franchise years; smaller parts in subsequent years.
What he did not do, after The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor in 2008, was headline a major studio film. The big projects stopped. Whether they stopped because he withdrew, because the industry stopped offering them, because of some combination of the two, because of the accumulated factors of his physical recovery and the emotional aftermath of the Berk incident and the market reality that the franchise era had ended — this is a question that the available evidence does not entirely resolve.
Fraser’s own framing was direct. “The phone does stop ringing in your career,” he told GQ in the 2018 interview, “and you start asking yourself why.” He did not offer a clean single explanation. He acknowledged the physical toll. He acknowledged the psychological consequences of the Berk incident. He acknowledged that the industry’s attention had moved elsewhere. He resisted the simple narrative in which any one of these factors was the decisive explanation, and he resisted the narrative in which he had done nothing for fifteen years.