Brendan Fraser Nearly Died on ‘The Mummy’ Set, Got ‘Choked Out Accidentally’ During Hanging Scene: ‘The World Went Sideways’
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Brendan Fraser revealed on a recent episode of “The Kelly Clarkson Show” that he had a near-death experience during a stunt gone wrong while filming “The Mummy.” The Oscar nominee said he was “choked out accidentally” during a scene in which he had to be hanged with a rope.
“I was standing on my toes like this with the rope and you only got so far to go,” Fraser said. “Stephen [Sommers, the director] ran over and he said, ‘Hey, it doesn’t really look like your choking. Can you sell it?’”
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The production team filmed one more take. Fraser said, “The camera swooped around and I went up on the toes and the guy holding the rope above me, he pulled it up a little higher and I was stuck on my toes and I had nowhere to go but down. So he was pulling up and I was going down. And then the next thing I knew, my elbow was in my ear, the world was sideways and there was gravel in my teeth.”
The stunt coordinator on the film rushed on set to wake Fraser up. When he did, the coordinator told the actor, “‘Congratulations, you’re in the club — same thing happened to Mel Gibson on ‘Braveheart.’”
“The Mummy” has endured as one of Fraser’s most beloved hits. The actor made headlines in January after he crashed a sold out theatrical screening of “The Mummy” in London.
“I am proud to stand before you tonight,” Fraser told the audience. “This is a film that was made in Britain. You should know that! Even the second one, too. Be proud. Thank you for being here. We had no idea what kind of movie we were making when we shot this. We didn’t know if it was a drama or a comedy or an action or a horror picture or a romance… all the above. We had no idea until it tested in front of British audiences. Thank you for that.”
Fraser recently won the Screen Actors Guild Award for best actor thanks to his performance in “The Whale,” which also garnered him his first Academy Award nomination.
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