Considering how many movies he makes, I have interviewed Brendan Fraser a surprisingly few times. Even when I covered the first "Mummy" sequel, "The Mummy Returns," Fraser was busy shooting another movie. I only got to ask him one question as he blazed down the red carpet. It was, "Do you feel like Indiana Jones running around the desert?" He said, "There's no replacing Indiana Jones."
I caught him on the set of "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" riding around the set on a segway, and for three minutes on the set of "Inkheart" in an impromptu interview. He finally did a sit down for this year's indie, "The Air I Breathe." It's not that he's difficult, just inaccessible with a whirlwind career.
He made sure to give the third "Mummy" film his time. "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" has Rick O'Connell (Fraser) retired with his wife Evie (Maria Bello). When their son (Luke Ford) accidentally unleashes a Chinese mummy (Jet Li), it takes the whole family to fight the new evil.
Considering his elusive past, Fraser seemed very low maintenance this time. He was right on time for his first interview of the morning, casual in a T-shirt and relaxed with a soft voice but high energy. He had big answers and big words, but still enough humor to see the fun of it all.
Q: What brought you back for a third "Mummy" film?
Brendan Fraser: Because I wanted to do this, honestly, it's true. It's just really great stuff, fun stuff. Making these movies, they call it an action pic but it's actually, I am enjoying myself out there. And I wanted to see where these characters would go knowing that they would be set in another archaeologically rich nation, in China.
Q: You are one of the actors that can really sell these sorts of movies, working with things that aren't really there. I just saw "Looney Tones" on cable the other day...
BF: Daffy?
Q: What is it about you that allows you to make this fantastical stuff believable?
A : Buy into it, believe it. That's your job anyway, you're in actor. If you don't, then the CGI guys are going to have a hard time doing it. And "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D" that just opened, it's all Vis FX. It was all about finding fixed points in space and believing that there's blue birds and coming across without having your eyes cross so they have to put something in front of you. It makes the guys in Palo Alto or the Valley or wherever they're hiding, doing this, a lot happier and it delivers to the audience.
Q: Your next movie, " Inkheart ," is like that as well, right?
BF: It is, and the story is based on an award winning children's novel written by Cornelia Funke, she wrote quite an imaginative tale of a little girl who has been looking for her mother with her father, although she disappeared under mysterious circumstances and you learn quickly that when the father reads aloud certain elements of a novel come to life and unfortunately there's price to pay and something disappears into it and we learn that his wife has disappeared into it and they go on this quest and along the way they encounter some serious baddies from great literature and the cast is rounded out by Helen Mirren, Andy Serkis, Paul Bettany, a really great cast of British actors and Iain Softley directed it and it's an imaginative film. I'm looking forward to it.
Q: We've seen you for 20 years in films and now you are playing the part of the dad to a 20-something year old. Was that kind of a change, that your son in this movie is a man already?
BF: No, I think it's good because it allowed for that dynamic of what Rob called the 'old-bull' and the 'young-bull' knocking skulls and having that tension that families can usually identify with and you need to have that in the midst of all of this huge imagery and cinematographical pyrotechnics.
You want to be able to latch onto something, you need some story, and in that case I think it was good to be very specific about, ok, he's a 20 something year old guy, he's big and tall, he thinks he's got chops and he's got a chip on his shoulder the size of a railroad tie. Maybe he's got his mom's smarts sometimes but he doesn't think it through and then to watch them come together whilst vanquishing the undead is always fun in a movie.
Q: Would you do another "Mummy?"
BF: Ask me in a little while and see if I have enough fluid left in my knees. I'm open to it, it was good fun. There's a nod and a wink in these movies all the time. I think that's probably why people like them because we were never taking ourselves too seriously while we were making it in terms of "This is an horror film," No, this is a comedy, but there is a scare. It's just sort of a Boo scare, amusement park style, funhouse kind of thing and the quality that Universal put into these movies from a production value is, well, I think visually you get your thrill at seeing how they created a rendering of a once very human individual as a creature who's going to travel through time and capsule to arrive in our 20th century and how he interacts with these characters.
Q: Do kids love you for all these wonderful roles you've played?
BF: I love kids, my kids, I like going to their schools and stuff. Before I had them, every now and then I'd look down in an airport and one of them would be stuck to my leg like burrs on your sock and you go walking in tall grass. Their mothers are normally near by. Yeah.
Q: You also get to do films like "The Air I Breathe," "Crash" and "Gods and Monsters." Do these big movies afford you those kinds of opportunities or are those few and far between?
BF: Look, variety is the spice of life and I think diversity is important. An actors career, I was trained in my early 20's, late teenager. They told us go to the risk, you will learn more, go towards the fear, stretch, grow. How do you do that in a film career? That was very highfalutin, pretentious stage acting talking. Well, you might not necessarily be able to because hey, you're not always going to get to do Chekov whenever you want to on screen, right? They're few and far between. But every now and then thoughtful pieces or more daring ones or risking ones or ones that might not work or some that might be the next "Crash."
Honestly we were calling it "Train Wreck" when we were shooting it and that's not for the sake of the material but because it was such a massive cast, no money, putting it together, coordinating everything, it was just a debacle but then you forget all that when it's done. It just goes to show you never really know so it's important to be a part of those pictures that speak to you. Some of them entertain, the "Mummy 3," then sometimes they enlighten.
Q: Are you signed up for anything else?
BF: No, I'm looking for a job. Or take a holiday, one of the two.
Q: They're doing a "Crash" TV series, do you have any interest in appearing in that?
BF: Is there? I heard they were developing it but...
Q: So they haven't come to you yet?
BF: Yet? No, they never did. I'm incensed. I happen to know the district attorney. I sat down with him to do my research for the role. He gave me a lot of time actually. No, I have nothing to do with the TV show but I am looking forward to seeing it.
Q: If you had to retire early, like Rick and Eve in this movie, would you go stir crazy too?
BF: Probably, yeah. Sometimes actors are forced to retire early whether they like it or not. They wind up with that proverbial closet full of failed hobbies. I open mine, camper's gear falls out and skis. It happens.
Q: What would you do instead?
BF: That's an epistemistic question. That's a 50 cent word. Look, I think what I would do, I'd have to scratch my head and think about it.
Q: Would you maybe get into directing?
BF: I wouldn't direct. It's directors who direct. I mean, actors become good directors but I happen to know there are some well crafted directors out there that I would prefer to work with them. I worked with a lot of first timers. Some of them are good, some of them? but this is by virtue of the fact that they didn't have as many hours behind the wheel in the air. What would I do? I'm undecided honestly. Truly, I'm undecided.
Q: What are you into in your spare time?
BF: Well, I like to watch films. I have a bad relationship with my computer right now. I'm organizing all those picture files. I'd like to print some out. Wouldn't we all? Hang out with my kids.
Q: What was the last DVD you bought or rented?
BF: I know the answer, I know the answer, don't tell me. No, no, my new favorite movie is "Ratatouille ."
Read our interview with Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh or access more information on The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor .
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