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Brendan Fraser Talks "The Air I Breathe" and "Inkheart"
by Jordan Riefe
After co-starring in such films as Encino Man and Airheads in the early days of his career, Brendan Fraser has sure come along way as an actor. In 1998, Fraser's career took off to new heights after his acclaimed performance in Bill Condon's Gods and Monsters, a role that put him on the map as a credible actor. The following year in 1999, Brendan Fraser became an international acting force after starring in the wildly popular adventure film The Mummy, which broke the bank at the box-office and spawned the successful sequel The Mummy Returns.
With another Mummy pic soon to come down the pike in 2008, Fraser can now be seen in The Air I Breathe, a dramatic story that examines four emotional facets of life: pleasure, sorrow, love and happiness, based on an ancient Chinese proverb.
As 2008 gets into full-swing, with Brendan Fraser also appearing in the long awaited Inkheart, we recently had the quick, but good fortune to catch up with Fraser at the press junket for The Air I breathe where the Canadian raised actor talked about working on the film, his character, and how it felt to be the only U.S. born cast member on the set of Inkheart.
Brendan Fraser on having the ability to see into the future in The Air I Breathe:
"I would not want to know those sorts of things. But I will trust intuition and I will trust my gut. I think we’ve [all] had that experience where the hair on the back of your neck stands up and you think, ‘Hmm, this is not helpful,' or 'I think I’ll go right instead of left this time.’ As far as having quasi-supernatural visions or premonitions go, I don’t think it’s something that would really interest me, thank you."
Fraser on luck and coincidence:
 "Pleasure [his character] says some people believe there are no coincidences; I am not one of those people. It is a point that the filmmaker is putting forth, that things happen for reasons and we need to accept them. I think that it’s a counter-point to the earlier question, which is if you could have an ability, would you want it? Well, I can assure you that Pleasure does not want that ability that he does have. That’s exemplified by the dark path that he has had to travel towards adulthood. And when we meet him as an adult, he’s - needless to say - in a very nefarious world. He’s grown apathetic and he’s tired and sad. He’s chain smoking because he’s trying to kill himself slowly and he’s not very high on life because he can’t feel pleasure, it just doesn’t work for him. It’s nothing personal when it comes down to it with the ability to know what’s going to happen next, it’s just a part of his job and he’s applied that ability to seeking out a father figure in the character Andy Garcia plays called Fingers."
Fraser on how he feels about being the only American in the cast of the now delayed Inkheart:
"I’m a Hoosier and a Hoser, just for the record, born in the U.S. and raised in Canada. The answer being, I’m very proud to be a member of that cast. That film came together in an epic sort of way. Cornelia Funke, the prize-winning children’s book author and illustrator, sought me out to tell me she’d written a book called Inkheart. She was thanking me for giving her inspiration to write this book because it was about a man who had a voice and when he read aloud elements from the book would come into our world and things would just appear. I was astonished and flattered. Then we had a meeting in Hamburg where I was doing press for the duck and the bunny movie - Looney Tunes - and I went to meet Cornelia and her family, her daughter and son, who didn’t believe I was real and poked me with a stick. [laughs] Anyhow, that became a screenplay and through a long journey it became a movie."
On the dynamics of the Inkheart set:
"It was great fun on set. Helen [Mirren] won her Oscar while we where there and Paul Bettany is one of the funniest guys I know. And Jim Broadbent, come on... when he did ‘Like a Virgin’, that’s going down in cinema history. He’s one of the most courageous comic actors - and this is just me speculating - but I think he thinks he’s one of the least funny people he knows [laughs]."
Brendan Fraser on Sarah Michelle Gellar helping land the role of Pleasure :
"I’m grateful for her support and for her strong recommendation and the influence that she lent, because I’ve never been asked to play a character like this before. The comedies that I’ve done have been broad and campy and great fun to make - headaches to make sometimes, too - but that’s comedy. Having been given the opportunity to play this role marks a departure for me in a way, which I was never asked to do before. The reserve it required in order for it to be the best it could be meant that Jieho [Lee] had to stay on top of me and remind me, "Don’t smile." The only time you see Pleasure smile is when he kisses her and says we’re going to go take a trip, we’re gonna get some money together."
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