Brendan Fraser Recalls Near-Death Experience on 'The Mummy' Set
Apparently the hit 1999 film was scarier than we thought.
Brendan Fraser is opening up about a terrifying experience on set of The Mummy, which he says almost cost him his life.
While starring alongside the undead in the hit 1999 film, Fraser himself almost took his final bow when he was accidentally "choked out" during one of the scenes.
While appearing on The Kelly Clarkson Show on Tuesday, Feb. 28, the 54-year-old actor relived the near-death experience and demonstrated what went down when they were filming a hanging scene for the action-adventure film.
"I was standing on my toes like this, with the rope [around my neck], and you only got so far [you can move]," Fraser, 54, told Clarkson of the scene, which featured his character Rick O'Connell about to be hung in a public square.
"And [director Stephen Sommers] ran over and he said, 'Hey, it doesn't really look like you're choking—can you sell it?' And I was like, 'All right, fine.' So I thought, 'One more take, man,'" he remembered. "And then the camera swooped around and I went up on the toes, and the guy holding the rope above me, he pulled it up a little higher and I was stuck on my toes— I had nowhere to go but down."
"And so he was pulling up and I was going down," he explained, noting that before Fraser knew it, "My elbow was in my ear, the world was sideways, there was gravel in my teeth and everyone was really quiet."
After passing out, Fraser was then woken up by a stunt coordinator, who joked, "'Congratulations, you're in the club—the same thing happened to Mel Gibson on Braveheart!" But the understandably frazzled actor could only reply, "Thanks, I think?! I wanna go home!"
Luckily Fraser made it out of shooting The Mummy alive, or he never would have been able to star in his newest feature film, The Whale, in which he plays the role of Charlie, a reclusive English teacher with morbid obesity who tries to reconnect with his teenage daughter.
The acclaimed movie just recently earned Fraser a Screen Actors Guild Award in the category for Outstanding Male Actor in a Leading Role. He is also up for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the upcoming Oscars, where he is competing against Austin Butler, Colin Farrell, Bill Nighy and Paul Mescal.
