Brendan Fraser Apologizes to San Francisco for George of the Jungle Incident

By Cameron Bonomolo

Brendan Fraser has apologized for getting a little "wild" during the filming of George of the Jungle in San Francisco. At a screening of his new film The Whale during the Mill Valley Film Festival in California, Fraser humorously issued an apology to the city where parts of George of the Jungle were filmed and took place. In an interview with the Bay Area's SFGATE, Fraser recalled a scene where his character — the Tarzan-inspired jungle king — rescues a parasailer dangling from the top of the Bay Bridge in the 1997 Disney comedy.

"I have almost an apology to make. When we were doing George of the Jungle, George goes to rescue a parachutist tangled in the Golden Gate Bridge," Fraser told SFGate, misremembering the Golden Gate Bridge for the Bay Bridge. "That means Disney put a mannequin hanging by a parachute from the uprights."

The scene, which you can watch below, "brought traffic to a standstill on either side of the bridge," Fraser recalled. "My trailer was on the other side in a parking lot. I just remember watching the Golden Gate Bridge. There's this dummy parachutist hanging from it. I had the TV on, and Oprah got interrupted because there was a special news report with helicopters saying a parachute is dangling on the bridge."

Fraser continued: "And I'm going — wait a minute, I'm looking at the helicopters and TV — somebody didn't pull a permit, somebody's going to get in trouble with the mayor's office. So I can only apologize for that."

Referencing the scene again while accepting a lifetime achievement award for acting, Fraser said of the George of the Jungle traffic jam, "My bad, it won't happen again."

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The Mummy and Doom Patrol star next appears in the Darren Aronofsky-directed The Whale, playing a reclusive obese man who attempts to connect with his estranged daughter (Stranger Things' Sadie Sink). In an interview with Vanity Fair, Fraser said of the role that has earned him widespread critical acclaim: "[Aronofsky] said he wanted an actor to reintroduce. And I wanted to be reintroduced." 

"If there's no risk, then why bother? I want to learn from the people I'm working with at this point in my career," Fraser said. "I've had such variety, a lot of high highs and low lows, so what I'm keen for, in the second half of my time doing this, is to feel like I'm contributing to the craft and I'm learning from it. This is a prime opportunity. I wanted to disappear into it. My hope was that I would become unrecognizable. I wanted to know what I was capable of."

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