"I was actually thinking of doing something in a bunny suit and a onesie": Interview with Brendan Fraser

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"I was actually thinking of doing something in a bunny suit and a onesie": Interview with Brendan Fraser

POSTED: Thursday, January 21, 2010, 7:20 PM

Filed Under: Interview | Movies

CBS Films

Brendan Fraser in Extraordinary Measures.

The evening before I interviewed Brendan Fraser I was obliged to attend a screening of his latest picture, Extraordinary Measures (see Molly Eichel's review), at the Prince Music Theater. When I strolled in he was situated to the right of the lobby behind a wall of flash bulbs generated from a crowd of Philly (pa-pa) paparazzi. Like everyone else, I grabbed my camera to snap my own video because I have no shame â George of the Jungle was one of my first crushes. Later, when inside the theater, he took to the stage to introduce the film. Suddenly, my excitement to interview him the next day waned. He gave a sappy, lackluster speech about how amazing the film was and how Hollywood has never made anything like it. He was taking himself way to serious. I almost barfed in my popcorn.

His discussion about the film didn't alter much the next day when I was huddled with him and five other reporters in a Four Seasons hotel room. He was, however, a lot more personable â well, as personable as his beastly, awkward frame would allow. Instead of lounging in the plush chair that was situated for him in the center of the room, he squatted on a wobbly wooden coffee table and commenced discussing how playing a real-life character changed his life.

In the film Fraser plays John Crowley, a New Jersey businessman who flips the pharmaceutical industry on its head in order to push through a drug for his two children who have a rare genetic disorder called Pompe. "This is something that I had never done before. I don't know when again I'll have an opportunity to portray a living, breathing person, who is easily one of the most principled people that I have ever known," he told one reporter. Sap city!

I wanted to veer him away from his PR talk, so I asked how he comfortably maneuvers depicting so many varied roles — from big budget movies like The Mummy series to his roles in smaller movies like Gods and Monsters — especially since the person before me didn't seem to possess a huge range of emotions to work with.

"I was actually thinking of doing something in a bunny suit and a onesie," he said, while flashing a couple of goofy glances my way that reminded me of his character in his Encino Man co-star Pauley Shore's Biodome. I'm not really sure what that was all about but it did seem to break out of his shell.

"I just like to work," he continued. "You shouldn't feel comfortable. If you're comfortable on set then you're not doing your job properly. To me, challenge is something I crave — to try to do something I haven't done before." He then went on to inform us about a film he has coming out in April called Fury Vengeance. "I will be tortured and played mean games upon by furry creatures," he explained. "So the point is I have a very eclectic career."

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