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His phoenix-like comeback may have been capped off by an Academy Award win for ‘Best Actor’ in Darren Aronofsky’s powerful drama The Whale, but it was the old-fashioned blockbuster adventure of The Mummy that first positioned Brendan Fraser as a viable Hollywood leading man back in 1999.
Between those two points, he’s lent his talents to almost every genre under the sun, with his ten favourite movies reflecting his desire to dip his toes into as much water as possible. Animated classics, more than one influence on The Mummy, and several of cinema’s most notable filmmakers all feature, with Fraser listing his candidates to A.Frame.
Bambi retains its power over Fraser through its status as the first movie he ever saw, which made him “always want to be kind to animals,” but not without the inevitable side effects: “Of course, there’s traumas. Clearly, the hunter and Bambi’s mom stayed with me,” he says. Another formative childhood favourite was George Lucas’ Star Wars, remarking that “If Star Wars doesn’t make the list, I’m not paying attention, right?”
One of two selections that ended up being reflected in his signature role as derring-do adventurer Rick O’Connell, Fraser acknowledges that The Mummy “was totally inspired by the skeleton battles in Jason and the Argonauts,” which he notes had an “interesting influence on me.” That’s why Raiders of the Ark also makes the cut, for obvious reasons: “If that isn’t an influence in my oeuvre, I would be a liar.”
His love for The Breakfast Club is on full display, and while he admits that “it’s a product of its time, in a time capsule kind of way,” he was bowled over by the way “it depicted teenagers in a sincere dialogue, the way that teenagers can get into it”.
Released just one year later, Platoon affected him in an entirely different manner. “It struck a chord with me at the time, because I was very similar in age to a lot of the guys depicted on that screen,” he said. “It made me think, ‘Wow, that could have been me.’ It hit home in a way. It was visceral if I’m honest.
Stanley Kubrick’s shadow has been cast over cinema for decades, so the means by which Barry Lyndon enthralled Fraser are equal parts fitting and ironic: “I loved Barry Lyndon because I heard that Kubrick created lenses so that they could leave the aperture open wide enough to capture candlelight, which I thought was very cool,” he offered. “It really felt like, ‘Wow, I guess we’re going to go back in time to see what it’s like in the Gilded Age!’ I loved that.”
Meanwhile, Mel Gibson’s wildly inaccurate Braveheart “spoke” to Fraser with its story of fathers and sons, and his “heart was bursting” when peers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck hit the big time with their Good Will Hunting Screenplay before Ratatouille brought him full circle with another animated classic to round out the eclectic ten.
Brendan Fraser’s 10 favourite movies:
- Bambi (David Hand, 1942)
- Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)
- Jason and the Argonauts (Don Chaffey, 1963)
- The Breakfast Club (John Hughes, 1985)
- Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986)
- Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
- Braveheart (Mel Gibson, 1995)
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
- Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant, 1997)
- Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007)
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