Brendan Fraser: His Adventurous Journey in Filmmaking

Ever since the massive success of 1999’s “The Mummy,” Brendan Fraser has become the go-to movie guy to play a smarter-than-average action hero/explorer. Although Fraser has also made his mark in critically acclaimed dramatic films such as “Crash” and “Gods and Monsters,” this year he stars in two big-budget action-adventure flicks: “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” (the third film in “The Mummy” franchise) and “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” The latter film, based on the Jules Verne novel, is breaking new ground in moviemaking, since it’s the first live-action digital 3-D film to be released in theaters. Fraser, 39, recently chatted about his experience making “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” and why the movie compelled him to sign on as a film’s executive producer for the very first time.

As an executive producer, what kind of creative control did you have for this movie?

I just want you to know that being a wannabe geek myself and techno nerd, the first time I saw the cover letter that accompanied the script … [I thought] the script was OK. It needed some work and the relationships didn’t really gel for me, but there was one sentence that was written on the cover page: “This film is to be shot in 3-D.” And I went [He makes excited sound]. … So I went to Borders and got a copy of “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” because I didn’t read it in high school, and got through it as quickly as I could. I realized that the relationships needed to be changed so that the father [in the screenplay] is not a father; he’s an uncle, just as he was in the book. And his nephew [Sean] is his research partner, and changing the gender of the guide … to [a woman named] Hannah. So it would allow for a team of misfits who wind up in this absurd situation and come out of it on the other side as better people and as a quasi-family … I was assertive and asked if I could participate in the capacity of a producer and they said yes. I took it as a responsibility and something that made me feel quite proud, like I earned a stripe.

There are some deadly plants that attack in this movie. What was it like shooting those scenes?

You’re referring to the snapping plants sequence, which, let me tell you, was never meant to be in the film. It was in a different part that the character Sean [played by Josh Hutcherson] encountered [a snapping plant] and he ran through it and they snapped at him in one bit. And it was such great cinema fun that we couldn’t let it go. We just couldn’t see that not make it onto the screen. Because if you think about it, there are only three [main] characters in this movie — Trevor [my character], Hannah [played by Anita Briem] and Sean — and there’s really no adversary in the picture. There’s nothing for them to go up against. There’s no baddie, for instance. So we needed one.

When your shirtsleeves got pulled off in that plant-attack scene, it showed your muscles — you were quite the eye candy for a lot of women in the audience, who loved that part of the movie. Whose idea was that?

The bit about the sleeves getting torn off was a clever concoction to justify some executive’s note that they had to have my sleeves ripped off. My question was why and his response was, “Because we want to see the guns.” I said, “OK, that’s all fine and well. But why would [my character] do that?” And he said, “Because it’s hot.” I said, “Why wouldn’t he roll his sleeves up?” So I won the argument about getting snapping plants in the movie by having the snapping plants rip one of my sleeves off and then tearing off one of the sleeves off myself and wiping the muck off my hands. So I feel pretty proud about that, if I don’t mind saying so.

You might’ve created a new look.

You know what? It’s when art and fashion just fuse in the perfect moment.