Universal
The Academy Awards may not have an Oscar set aside for “Comeback Actor of The Year,” but if that category existed, there’s a very good chance Brendan Fraser would walk away with the trophy at the upcoming ceremony.
There is a chance he’ll secure the most prestigious piece of hardware of his career thanks to the Best Actor nomination he earned for his work in The Whale, a movie that marked the grand return of a man who’s mounted a well-documented return to Hollywood after basically dropping off of the map in the late 2000s.
Fraser made a name for himself in the 1990s with roles in Blast from the Past and George of the Jungle, but he really burst onto the scene thanks to his portrayal of Rick O’Connell in The Mummy franchise.
That character stared death in the face on a number of occasions over the course of the trilogy. However, it turns out the actor who portrayed him also encountered a real-life scare while filming the first installment.
During a recent appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Fraser recounted what unfolded when a stunt went awry during the sequence in The Mummy where his character narrowly escapes being hanged after being sent to the gallows in a prison in Cairo.
Here’s what he had to say about that fateful (and nearly fatal) incident:
“I was standing on my toes with the rope and you’ve only got so far to go.
[Director] Steve [Sommers] ran over and he said, ‘Hey, it doesn’t really look like you’re choking. Can you sell it?’ and I’m like, ‘Alright, fine.’
So I thought, ‘One more take, man.’ The camera swooped around and I went up on the toes and the guy holding the rope above me pulled it up a little higher. I was stuck on my toes and had nowhere to go but down, so he was pulling up and I was going down.
The next thing I knew, my elbow was in my ear, the world was sideways, there was gravel in my teeth, and everyone was really quiet.
The stunt coordinator was there and he was going, ‘Brendan, Brendan, wake up’ and I’m like ‘What happened?’ He’s like, ‘Congratulations, you’re in the club. The same thing happened to Mel Gibson on Braveheart.”
At least it all worked out in the end.