Brendan Fraser on career and rising star Shannon Gorman
Brendan Fraser reflects on his childhood and praises Shannon Gorman’s raw talent and fiery spirit in new film “Rental Family.”
Ask Brendan Fraser how much his life has changed since winning his first Oscar and he’ll give you a “Come on, man” smirk. While there’s some recent golden hardware on his shelf, this is still the guy who did “Airheads” and “The Mummy.”
“Not much,” Fraser says simply. He took home the best actor Academy Award in 2023 for “The Whale,” and for his latest lead role, Fraser is stretching himself to portray a not very good actor.
Fraser stars in the new dramedy “Rental Family” (in theaters Nov. 21) as Phillip Vandarpleog, a lonely American expat in Japan. Phillip has been living in Tokyo for seven years but not exactly thriving, a one-time toothpaste mascot who now gets gigs as a tree. (“He’s somewhat wooden, you could say. Wocka wocka,” Fraser jokes, channeling Fozzie Bear.)
Phillip begins to find his way when he starts working for a rental family service, which hires him out to play stand-in roles in strangers’ lives. He makes strong emotional connections with his clients when pretending to be a journalist interviewing a Japanese movie legend (Akira Emoto) and the long-lost dad of a young girl (Shannon Gorman).
“By using those acting skills, which weren’t very good, and becoming authentic himself, he finds a need fulfilled in him that he wasn’t anticipating,” Fraser says.
He talks with USA TODAY about “Rental Family,” coming back for another “Mummy” adventure (although “my lips are sealed about that”) and playing Dwight D. Eisenhower in the upcoming D-Day thriller “Pressure.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Q: When we chatted for “The Whale,” you mentioned how much your own children helped fuel that performance. In “Rental Family,” did you think back to when your kids were younger as you’re running around with this little girl?
Brendan Fraser: When you have kids, it lives in you. You don’t need to think of them necessarily to drum anything up as an actor to play a scene. It’s there. And I needed really only to take one look at this kid and know that she’s the genuine article. She has an innocence about her that just translates so purely. She never acted before. That really worked for the role, considering how convincing she is and innocent and truly impressionable. But at the same time, nobody’s pushover. The character and the kid herself are real firecrackers.
Does playing a role like this, as someone who plays a part in someone’s life, give you new perspective on your own career?
The perspective I have now is I still have a lot to learn. I mean, for whatever result from my previous efforts, I’m glad that it never gave me a feeling of absolute accomplishment. “Nailed it.” I still have a great deal that I’m interested in that I want to keep striving for going forward.
After the Oscar win, do you find yourself seeking out different challenges?
Sure. A basic tenet is “let’s be a part of work that people want to see.” Imagine that. Do something that’s new, that’s fresh, that’s interesting. Or if you rely on something that you’ve done previously, let it be for a good reason to remind people of where your strengths are. It’s also important to give folks what they want, that is to come away from watching a film feeling like maybe they’re changed a little bit or they’re different or they see something in a new way.
In the spirit of giving folks what they want, is that one of the reasons why you’re interested in doing a fourth “Mummy” movie?
I spend plenty of time at a desk signing so many pictures of Rick O’Connell and “Mummy” swag and posters in fan conventions. I just came from one in Minnesota. The pulse on that need for the story to continue is as strong as ever it was. It’s heartening to see that the generation who saw this as a popcorn movie as kids now have kids. They’re introducing it to them in a whole new way. That’s really exciting.
So what was it like playing Eisenhower?
Fascinating. We learn that there was very bad weather that weekend (before D-Day), and it took a meteorologist to stand up to the joint chiefs of staff and make a case for science to inform the decision about if or not to land on Monday, June 5, or postpone by 12, 18 hours – no small feat – so that they would have better conditions for the Allied forces to land. It’s a story about nerdy meteorologists standing up in the name of facts to save the day.
