'The Whale' : Samuel D. Hunter Discusses Writing the Brendan Fraser Film 'from a Very Vulnerable Place'

Playwright Samuel D. Hunter makes the leap to the big screen with the Brendan Fraser-starring drama, The Whale.

The award-winning writer, 41, adapted his own 2012 play of the same name for director Darren Aronofsky's film, which is now playing in theaters.

Hunter tells PEOPLE he had never imagined his play would become a film one day — let alone one that would mark his screenwriting debut. After Aronofsky (Black Swan) caught a production of of the play in New York and asked Hunter if he'd like to collaborate on a film adaptation, Hunter says he couldn't refuse the opportunity.

"If I'm being really honest, some of my favorite movies are play-to-film translations — like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is one of my favorite movies of all time," shares Hunter. "And what I love about that movie is it doesn't apologize to the fact that it's a play. It doesn't try to open it up or do fancy tricks in order to add characters or add locations or anything. And I think Darren kind of approached this the exact same way. So I think fundamentally, as a storyteller, I think it's doing exactly what the play is doing. It's just telling the story of this human being."

In The Whale, Fraser stars as Charlie, a 600-lb. gay writing instructor who tries to repair his relationship with his estranged teenage daughter, Ellie (Stranger Things star Sadie Sink).

While Hunter emphasizes that there's nothing "directly autobiographical" in The Whale, the play and the film both contain "a mix of different things" stemming from his own life and experiences.

"There's parts of myself in multiple characters," he clarifies. "I went to a Christian fundamentalist high school that was very similar to the one that Thomas (Ty Simpkins) comes from in the script. Not exactly similar, but quite similar. And like Alan, Charlie's lover, I had a really, really hard time reconciling my faith and my sexuality. I mean, it took me years."

"Part of writing The Whale was continuing the journey of figuring that out," he continues. "And I did self-medicate with food. I was very depressed in early college years, since my late teens, early twenties, and food was a coping mechanism for me."

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In Toronto and Venice, where the film premiered over the fall, The Whale received prolonged standing ovations and garnered positive reviews from critics. Asked what it's been like sharing his personal project with the world, Hunter admits it's "been really overwhelming" on an emotional level.

"The play was written from a very vulnerable place, and so it has been a little head spinning to share it with the amount of people that we're sharing it with," he says. "But what makes it worthwhile is, I'm doing talkbacks where people come up to me… I did a talkback at a screening at the Hammer Museum that was, I think, maybe the first crowd that I had done that was a non-industry crowd. It was just a paying audience. And I ended up just hugging multiple strangers afterward who wanted to come up to me and tell me about their own stories. So that's been incredible to see people catch it in that way and it really meaning something to people. That's been really gratifying."

While Fraser appears to be an early favorite this awards season (he recently netted a Golden Globe nomination), some have expressed concern over his casting as an obese man and whether the film's title is intended as an insult.

RELATED VIDEO: Brendan Fraser Discusses How Obesity and Acceptance is Presented in 'The Whale'

"I think I knew that something," Hunter says about the backlash. "It's been curious because with the play, the play's been produced dozens and dozens and dozens of times over the years, if not hundreds at this point. I mean, there was just a Finnish production that that went up a few months ago. And I've read hundreds of reviews at this point, of the play, and I've never really encountered that sort of backlash from the play that the movie is getting. And I think it's a couple different reasons."

"One, I think the history of obesity, in regards to cinema, is pretty terrible," he continues. "These kinds of prosthetics have been used very inaccurately and to deride people or make fun of them. Whereas what we're doing is just trying to delve into the deep complex humanity of this very beautiful and complicated human being. And I also just think that with this kind of stuff… With plays, people don't usually read a one sentence synopsis and then judge it based off of that. But I think that people just do that more often with film. So yeah, I mean, I understand that people will have whatever reaction they're going to have, but I just have to have faith in the story that I'm telling, which I think is grounded in empathy and love."

As for what's next after The Whale, Hunter says he hopes the positive reception to the film "opens some doors for me in the film world."

In January, he begins rehearsals for the Off-Broadway premiere of his play A Bright New Boise at the Signature Theatre in New York. "I'm just so thrilled to get back into a rehearsal hall," he says.

The Whale is now playing in theaters.