Brendan Fraser Movies
A muscular, darkly handsome actor who defies easy categorization,
Brendan Fraser has an enviable versatility that has allowed him to be equally convincing in comedies, dramas, and adventure films alike. The son of a Canadian tourism executive,
Fraser was born in Indianapolis on December 3, 1968. Thanks to his father's job,
Fraser and his family led a fairly peripatetic existence, living in locales as varied as Ottawa, London, Rome, and Seattle. During his time in London,
Fraser became interested in theater and eventually enrolled in Seattle's Cornish Institute for training.
After an early appearance in
Dogfight (1991),
Fraser got his break in 1992's
Encino Man as a Stone-Age man unfrozen in modern-day California.
He went on to gain audience prominence in diverse roles such as a Jewish football player in an all-WASP environment in
School Ties (1992), a grunged-out musician in
Airheads (1994), a Harvard student who loses his thesis in
With Honors (1994), and a quirky baseball phenom in
The Scout (1994).
Fraser has been quoted in one magazine article as saying that he seeks out roles combining "silliness and sexiness"; his work during the second half of the '90s certainly reflected this. Particular highlights were
George of the Jungle (1997), a satire of jungle adventure films;
Gods and Monsters (1998), the acclaimed rendering of the last days of director
James Whale, for which
Fraser earned particular praise in his role as
Whale's strapping gardener; the romantic comedy Blast From the Past (1999); and a big-budget remake of
The Mummy (1999) that effectively showcased
Fraser as a hero well-suited to old-school adventure. So successful were the extravagantly computer generated exploits of the revived
Mummy soon became a franchise, birthing sequels like
The Mummy Returns (2001) and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008).
Fraser would spend subsuquent years appearing in a number of varied projects, including comedies like Bedazzled and Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, dramas like The Quiet American and Crash, and adventure movies, like Journey to the Center of the Earth and Inkheart. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi