Brendan Fraser

After break­ing out in the 1990s in a series of com­mer­cial hits that went on to become cult clas­sics, Bren­dan Fras­er has estab­lished him­self as one of the most endear­ing faces in Hol­ly­wood cin­e­ma, thanks to his rare blend of humor, gen­eros­i­ty and phys­i­cal com­mit­ment. After sev­er­al years out of the spot­light, his seis­mic return in Dar­ren Aronofsky’s The Whale, marked the rebirth of an artist whose career has nev­er ceased to surprise.

Born in Indi­ana, Bren­dan Fras­er spent his child­hood between Europe, the Unit­ed States and Cana­da. He first appeared on stage at age 12, before study­ing act­ing in Lon­don, then at the Cor­nish Col­lege of the Arts in Seat­tle, where he spe­cial­ized in phys­i­cal theater.

After get­ting his start on stage, he went to Hol­ly­wood in the ear­ly 1990s. His star rose quick­ly with a string of pop­u­lar hits that show­cased his charis­ma and comedic tim­ing. After Sam Weisman’s George of the Jun­gle (1997), he con­firmed his sta­tus as a box-office draw with The Mum­my (1999), The Mum­my Returns (2001) and The Mum­my: Tomb of the Drag­on Emper­or (2008), which has become one of the world’s biggest adven­ture film fran­chis­es. He con­tin­ued to shift reg­is­ters in films like Bill Condon’s Gods and Mon­sters (1998), Harold Ramis’s Bedaz­zled (2000), Phillip Noyce’s The Qui­et Amer­i­can (2002), Paul Haggis’s Oscar Best Pic­ture-win­ner Crash (2005), and Eric Brevig’s Jour­ney to the Cen­ter of the Earth (2008), the first block­buster shot entire­ly in 3D, which he also produced.

Used to per­form­ing many of his own stunts, Bren­dan Fras­er suf­fered sev­er­al injuries over the years that kept him away from film sets for a long time. His absence end­ed with a spec­tac­u­lar return in Dar­ren Aronofsky’s The Whale (2022). His mov­ing por­tray­al of a griev­ing pro­fes­sor sink­ing into depres­sion won him the Acad­e­my Award for Best Actor. He con­tin­ued this new phase of his career with roles in Steven Soderbergh’s No Sud­den Move, Mar­tin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Max Barbakow’s Broth­ers. Along­side his film work, Bren­dan Fras­er has had a strong career in TV, appear­ing in such shows as Scrubs, The Affair, Trust, Con­dor and Doom Patrol. He has per­formed on stage in Lon­don, notably in Ten­nessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and made his Broad­way debut in Elling, adapt­ed from the nov­els by Ing­var Ambjørnsen.

This year, he plays the lead­ing roles in Hikari’s com­e­dy-dra­ma Rental Fam­i­ly and in Antho­ny Maras’s his­tor­i­cal film Pres­sure. He will soon star in Andy Garcia’s Dia­mond, before return­ing to one of his most icon­ic char­ac­ters in the next edi­tion of the Mum­my fran­chise, due in 2027.