'Mummy' Star Brendan Fraser Finds the 'Tomb of the Dragon Emperor'
By Emily Christianson, Hollywood.com Staff
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Monday, August 04, 2008
“I missed playing Rick and that last seven years I’ve been waiting for the call,” jokes Brendan Fraser of his return to the Mummy franchise. The new action flick, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, finds Fraser’s Rick O’Connell living a quiet retired life with his wife Evelyn. Their son Alex has left the nest and is following in the footsteps of his famous parents. When the twenty-something gets in over his head, there’s only one thing to do … call mom and dad.
Hollywood.com met up with Fraser in L.A. to find out what it was like reprising the role of O’Connell, working with a new leading lady and more.
Hollywood.com: Why was it important to you to get back into these shoes and revisit this?
Brendan Fraser: Why was it important? Because I wanted to do this, honestly, it's true. It's just really great stuff, fun stuff. Making these movies, they call it an action pic but it's actually, I am enjoying myself out there. And I wanted to see where these characters would go, knowing that they would be set in another archaeologically rich nation, in China.
HW: Was it an adjustment working with Maria Bello after working with Rachel Weisz on the first two films?
BF: I saw the script, out of habit, I'd worked with my friend Rachel on two pictures, you know you read the dialogue, you can hear her voice – I had an idea of what her choices are going to be. When I heard that she decided to step aside, I would feel her absence no matter who stepped into the role. Screen testing, reading, meeting other actresses underlined in a way that a role is a role. You just step in and you do it, bring something new to it, and in this case what this picture has done is bring Maria Bello into that character [and] has allowed for a type of re-invention of the librarian cum expeditioner-ess to take – I think, to have a different run at what the dynamic of that couple is now.
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