Brendan Fraser on the 3rd Mummy Movie and G.I. Joe

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Another new addition to the Mummy cast is 26-year-old Australian actor Luke Ford. Ford plays Rick and Evelyn's son, Alex, a role played by then 10-year-old Freddie Boath in 2001's The Mummy Returns. So how was it to play the dad of a 21 year old, something Brendan Fraser hadn't done before in a feature film? "I think it's good because it allowed for a dynamic of what Rob called the 'old-bull' and the 'young-bull' - knocking skulls and having that tension that families have that [you] usually identify with.

And you need to have that in the midst of all of this huge imagery and pyrotechnics," answered Fraser. "You want to be able to latch onto something. You need some story, and in that case I think it was good to be very specific about, okay, he's a 20 something year old guy. He's thinks he's got chops and chips on his shoulder the size of a railroad tie, and he's got his mom's smarts sometimes but he doesn't think it through. And to watch them come together whilst vanquishing the undead is always fun in a movie."

Fraser will have a little downtime after finishing up promoting The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor as he's not signed on to any other roles at the moment. But in between wrapping filming his third Mummy movie and doing press for it, Fraser did a cameo role in Stephen Sommers' G.I. Joe movie. Fraser's a huge fan of the action toy line and a big fan of Sommers' work. "He's enthusiastic like he would believe," said Fraser of his experience working with Sommers on the first two Mummy movies.

"He is a Midwestern boy from Minnesota, son of a pediatrician, family guy. My favorite moments working with Stephen on the other two pictures was on the first one, two of them actually, we were shooting something with columns and things are going to fall down. He's like, 'Okay, ready and DON'T SUCK! ACTION!' Things are crashing around us and you run like your pants are on fire, so we had to do it again. And when things were getting a little bit sticky, he'd say, 'Oh man, the next movie I make is going to be like two chicks sitting on a beach on towels talking. That's it. That's all they're going to do.' But he loves his job, [he and Rob Cohen] both do. Making movies can be a headache but it's intensely rewarding."

Fraser joked that he didn't just ask Sommers for a part in G.I. Joe, he begged. Recalling how it all went down, Fraser said, "We were in Shanghai shooting the chase sequence at Shanghai studios - a remarkable place because it's all practical - whatever point in Chinese history you want, they've got it there. The interiors you can also shoot. It's a remarkable facility and the allure wears off when it's the middle of the night and it's raining a little bit and everyone is having certain digestive issues. [Producer] Bob Duscay gets off the phone, and he produced the other two pictures as well, and he's got this big ol' smile. I said, 'What do you have to be so happy about?' And he goes, 'We just got the greenlight to do G.I. Joe from Paramount.' 'Hey, congratulations, good for you...can I be in it?! PLEASE?! I'll wash your dog! I had a G.I. Joe…he dangled from his parachute strings in a tree one winter...' And they called me."

"Let's get this straight though, I am NOT Gung Ho," said Fraser. "I am not a refugee from the Village People, like the character Gung Ho. I am not that character. I made a personal choice and decided I would be a great-great grandson to Rick O'Connell, so that's all I'm telling you. And that's about everything because it's a cameo."

Fraser also confirmed he's not playing Shipwreck…but wouldn't reveal much else about his role for fear he'd get in trouble for saying too much. He did confess he hopes his G.I. Joe character will be turned into an action figure. "Gosh, I hope so. I remember the first time playing Rick O'Connell and this cast arrived of this doll and it didn't look anything like me. The eyeballs were painted on and in one arm he had a permanent grip to stick a weapon in it and in the other one he's got a stick of dynamite in it and a little LED on the end of it. And if you raised the left arm a little speaker would go, 'Well, I just knew this was going to be a great day!' And that was a line that got cut," laughed Fraser. "And they didn't even use me. It was really high-pitched and effeminate sounding. And if you raised the right arm on the doll with the dynamite stick it would go, 'BOOM!' And if you looked closer you would see that the little speaker holes were on the ass of the doll. 'I just knew this was going to be a great day! BOOM!'"

Fraser's earned his brief break from acting. After all, if things work out, Fraser will be seen in four feature films in 2008. The Air I Breathe was released in January. The 3D family adventure tale Journey to the Center of the Earth hit theaters on July 11th, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor on August 1st. Inkheart may be film number four for Fraser, if Warner Bros doesn't push the release date back to 2009.

As of now, Fraser believes Inkheart will be hitting theaters in December. "The story is based on an award-winning children's novel written by Cornelia Funke," said Fraser. "She wrote an imaginative tale of a little girl who has been looking for her mother with her father, although she disappeared under mysterious circumstances. And you learn that when the father reads aloud, certain elements of a novel come to life and unfortunately there's price to pay and something also disappears into it. His wife has disappeared into it and they go on this quest and along the way they encounter some serious baddies from great literature. The cast is rounded out by Helen Mirren, Andy Serkis, Paul Bettany, a really great cast of British actors. Iain Softley directed it and it's an imaginative film."
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