Brendan Fraser Remembers His Insane Monkey Co-Star in George of the Jungle
Brendan Fraser was a fan-favorite actor in the 1990s and he recently came back into the spotlight thanks to his performance in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale, which earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Fraser is known for many hit films, including The Mummy movies, and he also played the titular role in George of the Jungle in 1997. Recently, Fraser spoke to Deadline about making the family comedy and shared some wild stories about his monkey co-star.
"There were real monkeys on [George of the Jungle], Mr. Binks was real. He was a very naughty, little monkey. ... Mr. Binks was a boy monkey, Mr. Binks was a Disney monkey. Boy Disney monkeys don't show their boyness in a Disney film," Fraser explained. "So Mr. Binks had a little bikini, little fur bikini, and the thing about apes, monkeys in particular, they become teenagers at some point, and they age out, and they become incorrigible and they bite and scratch – and that's nasty and scary. And he was just on the cusp that week, where he found himself, and he had just enough attitude that he got a little bit overconfident about acting, and he would get frustrated when he didn't get his take the way he wanted it. He was trained to whisper in my ear, he stuck his tongue so far into my eardrum, and I was like, 'Come on, ew.'"
Fraser continued, "And he got mad, rips off his fur bikini – wait for it – disappears into the rafters, starts tearing apart the set deck. There's flowers and all kinds of crap flying around the place. And yeah, he was, he was having a monkey moment. And the trainer came out and was like, 'Stop that right now, Mr. Binks! No, no!' I was killing myself laughing. Never work with animals."
Why Didn't Brendan Fraser Make George of the Jungle 2?
Recently, Fraser took part in Variety's "Actors on Actors" series with Adam Sandler and talked about why he didn't make George of the Jungle 2.
"I think George got a remake, and they built a joke into it that the studio was too cheap to hire me, which wasn't inaccurate," Fraser explained. "I was approached. I can't remember what I was doing at the time, but I felt like I wanted to go do The Quiet American instead with Michael Caine, and shoot the first Western film in Vietnam ever, directed by Phillip Noyce, to tell an infinitely American story." Fraser continued, "I'm always making diverse choices, and, hopefully, that keeps me and an audience interested. With a bit of distance, I think they've all cumulatively led up to the place I'm in now."
"I was waxed. Starved of carbohydrates," Fraser explained of getting into shape for George of the Jungle. "I would drive home after work and stop to get something to eat. I needed some cash one day, and I went to the ATM, and I couldn't remember my PIN number because my brain was misfiring. Banging on the thing. I didn't eat that night."
George of the Jungle is currently streaming on Disney+.