Brendan Fraser Reveals Why He Didn't Return for George of the Jungle 2

By Jamie Jirak

Brendan Fraser is having a pretty great year as he's currently a frontrunner to get nominated at the Academy Awards for his performance in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale. Fraser is known for many beloved films from the 1990s, including Encino Man, Airheads, George of the Jungle, The Mummy, and much more. While he returned to play The Mummy's Rick O'Connell in a couple of sequels, there is one character he did not get the chance to revisit. Recently, he 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."

What Has Brendan Fraser Said About the Batgirl Cancellation? 

While Fraser is currently thriving in Hollywood, the actor did have one major setback this year. There's one project of the actor's that fans won't get to see, and that's Batgirl. In August, DC fans were met with the shocking news that Warner Bros. Discovery decided to scrap the Batgirl film despite the fact that it had already wrapped filming. The cancellation caused reactions from many people involved with the movie ranging from its stars to the directors, Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi, who addressed the news in a video. In another interview with Variety, Fraser opened up about the cancellation. 

"It's tragic," Fraser explained. "It doesn't engender trust among filmmakers and the studio. Leslie Grace was fantastic. She's a dynamo, just a spot-on performer. Everything that we shot was real and exciting and just the antithesis of doing a straightforward digital all-greenscreen thing. They ran firetrucks around downtown Glasgow at 3 in the morning and they had flamethrowers. It was a big-budget movie, but one that was just stripped down to the essentials." The actor added, "Everything that Adil and Bilall shot felt real and exciting." 

You can watch Fraser's "Actors on Actors" video here. 

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