Brendan Fraser blacked out while filming the hanging scene The Mummy
Brendan Fraser details the on-set incident from The Mummy that caused him to faint
Aux News Mummy
Over the last few months, Brendan Fraser has taken many moments to look back on his early career, as well as share some The Mummy pride at award ceremonies, but recently Fraser detailed the moment when shooting the film’s hanging scene caused him to faint.
In an interview on The Kelly Clarkson Show, The Whale actor shares that he was actually choked out while trying to bring some realism to the dramatic public execution scene.
“I was standing on my toes like this, with the rope [around my neck], and you only got so far to go,” Fraser tells Clarkson. “And [director] Stephen [Sommers] ran over, and he said, ‘Hey, it doesn’t really look like you’re, you know, choking—can you sell it?’ And I was like, ‘All right, fine.’ So I thought, ‘One more take, man.’”
He continues, “I was stuck on my toes—I had nowhere to go but down. And so he was pulling up, and I was going down, and 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.”
After he came-to on the ground, The Mummy’s stunt coordinator told him, “Congratulations, you’re in the club—the same thing happened to Mel Gibson on Braveheart.”
It seems as though Fraser recalls the incident a little differently than director Stephen Sommers, who a few years ago said that Fraser “did it to himself.”
“[Brendan] is totally to blame,” Sommers told Entertainment Weekly. “He tightens the noose, and then, as we’re about to get the shot, he’s trying to make it look like it’s really strangling him. I guess it cut off his carotid artery, or whatever, and knocked him out.”
Nonetheless, the scene turned out alright, and Fraser lived to tell the tale over 20 years later.
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I’m going to be that guy.This is like, really, really old news that he’s (and Rachel Weisz) talked about in interviews quite a few times now.https://www.slashfilm.com/1044192/the-mummys-hanging-scene-wasnt-entirely-fake-for-brendan-fraser/https://ew.com/movies/2019/07/23/brendan-fraser-the-mummy-choked-out/https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2477057/brendan-fraser-was-choked-and-nearly-killed-by-a-snake-while-filming-the-mummyhttps://www.throwbacks.com/the-mummy-curse/
Plus Stephen Sommers in the commentary.
That too! I totally forgot about that.
Poor guy is running out of stories in what seems like a year long press tour at this point, I’ll cut him some slack personally at least for repeating some material…
I’ll cut Brendan some slack, but not the websites reporting this story like it’s new lol.
Yeah, maybe this story isn’t super well-known, but it’s definitely been out there. If you listen to all three of the commentaries that come on The Mummy Ultimate DVD (which I did), everyone gives their account of what happened (the main point of dispute seems to be whether or not the shot of Fraser choking actually made it into the movie). I guess in some ways I’d rather see a rehashing of a really old entertainment story rather than trying to bleed dry something like Don’t Worry Darling or Scorsese vs. Marvel, but this does feel on the level of having a story about, “Hey if you look a stormtrooper bonks his head on a door in Star Wars.”
but this does feel on the level of having a story about, “Hey if you look a stormtrooper bonks his head on a door in Star Wars.”This is a solid summary of how I felt reading this “story” lol.
Doesn’t Fraser do one of those commentaries? I can remember watching that scene and hearing him say “And right … here is where I passed out and almost died.”
Exactly, this is very old news. I know he is asked about it repeatedly, he probably gets sick of going over it.
wait, but how does this impact the incongruity between all of our love for Brendan Fraser and his amazing performance in THE WHALE (seriously, do you know how hard it is to portray “obese” without looking crummy, it’s like playing drunk- it’s much harder than it seems) with the idea that we all HATE THE WHALE for being a movie about a man who is obese? I’m not sure I know what to feel here.Is he bad for this or good? Do we still like Fraser? SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT TO THINK
So, he’s getting awards for an amazing performance in The Whale, and you are reporting on old news from the first mummy movie?? This news is over 20 years old.