Brendan Fraser is experiencing one of the amazing comebacks in recent Hollywood history. After spending years in supporting roles, he’s on an Oscar course with the lead role in Darren Aronofsky’s drama The Whale.
To increase his chances at the Academy Awards, Fraser appears on numerous podcasts and TV shows. One of these was The Kelly Clarkson Show (via Deadline), in which he recalled a dangerous moment filming his best-known film, The Mummy.
Brendan Fraser on The Mummy shoot: ‘I was accidentally suffocated’
In case you remember, at the beginning of The Mummy, adventurer Rick O’Connell (Fraser) ends up in an Egyptian prison. Here Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) sees him for the first time – just as he is about to be hanged.
Brendan Fraser has spoken about this scene before, this time describing his experience as follows:
I was accidentally suffocated. […] I stood on my toes with the rope [um meinem Hals] and there is little room for maneuver. [Regisseur Stephen Sommers] came up to me and said, ‘Hey, it doesn’t look like you’re choking. can you sell this better
At the next attempt it got dangerous:
[…] I got on my toes and the guy holding the rope above me pulled it up a little higher and balanced on my toes and couldn’t go any further than down. He pulled up and I pulled down. And the next thing I remember is […] that the world was upside down and I had gravel between my teeth.
Watch the scene from The Mummy here:
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Fraser had apparently lost consciousness, then everything went quiet on the set until someone came and cheerfully explained:
Congratulations, you are now part of the club. Same thing happened to Mel Gibson on Braveheart. More details on the dangerous The Mummy scene
Incidentally, opinions on the shooting of the scene differ. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly last July, director Stephen Sommers denied the blame:
Brendan is entirely to blame for this. He tightened the noose and when we tried to shoot it he acted like it was really choking him. I think it pinched an artery or something and made him faint. He did this to himself.
Fraser, on the other hand, noted at the time that he was following Stephen Sommers’ instructions when he wanted to play the suffocation as believably as possible. In any case, after these descriptions, one will see the scene in The Mummy with different eyes.
In the Night of March 12-13 decides whether Brendan Fraser can call himself an Oscar winner in the future. Then the Academy Awards will lose in Los Angeles.