| When pressed, he
makes it clear that the role was not offered to him on a platter. He
would have had to meet with the director, and he says, "I was
really intimidated by Robert Redford because I had read for A River
Runs Through It and didn't get the part. What better antidote than
to do this broad comedy?" Sure, hanging with Sandler and fellow SNL cast member Chris Farley while the duo engaged in late-night gross-out contests at diners was probably more fun than playing father-son scenes with Paul Scofield, who had won the Best Actor Oscar for A Man for All Seasons before Fraser was born. It was perhaps, in hindsight, not the best decision. But one good thing happened that year-Fraser met his future wife at Winona Ryder's Fourth of July party. Several years later, Fraser tried a surprise proposal using a 1940's era Polaroid. The plan was this: While the couple walked across the Pont des Arts in Paris, he would set up the vintage camera for a timer-shot portrait of the two of them. As they posed, Fraser would surreptitiously open his coat to reveal a sign that read: WILL YOU MARRY ME? He hoped to give Afton the ring as she stared at the developing photo. However, due to interruptions, bad exposures and nerves, Fraser had to ditch the camera and get down on one knee. As he tells me the story, I ask whether the camera is some king of shield for him, a buffer against the world or intimacy. Fraser dismisses the thought. "I'm trying to capture something you can possess forever," he says.
|
party, and she
talked about how working with Brendan in Mrs. Winterbourne
reminded her of Jack Lemmon when they were doing The Apartment,"
says Condon. "And I thought, That's an interesting comparison
because Brendan's still seen as mostly a comic actor, and Lemmon
didn't do the deep stuff until later." Only time will tell if Fraser has a Days of Wine and Roses (or a Glengarry Glen Ross) in his future. And as we stare at the black-and-white photographs from Walker Evans and James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men in the Met's gallery, I wonder about whether the Fraser 2000 isn't himself a throwback to an earlier time - a modern model whose styling is retro. He cites Buster Keaton as an influence, and his wife, the film buff in the marriage, describes his on-screen persona as being that of "an old soul." Ramis, too, found himself casting his memory back to vintage Hollywood when he tried to place Fraser among today's current stars. "Mike Myers to me is not totally convincing when he plays sincere. And when Jim Carrey gets serious, I feel a bit of what I feel when Robin Williams get serious - that it's almost too serious," says Ramis. "Our movie gets very silly, yet Brendan is able to pull it right back and have you care about him. Part of it is his integrity. The way Henry Fonda or Jimmy Stewart just radiates goodness. And Brendan actually has that. It is not something that he is affecting or putting on. It shines through in everything he does, and that's where Hollywood heroes are born." Today this Hollywood hero is watching my back as we round out the afternoon in the Egyptian wing of the Metropolitan Museum, a fitting send-off before Fraser reprises his Indiana Jones-manqué role in The Mummy Returns. Aside from enjoying art, Fraser frequents museums because they are some of the best places left for him "to hid in plan sight because everyone's looking at what's on the wall," he says. Even though he has on the standard movie-star camo of baseball cap and black T-shirt, several visitors stop dead in the tracks when they notice who their sarcophagus-examining friend is. One man puts a protective arm around his wife and leads her out of the crypt, as if Fraser's mere presence might awaken Nefertiti and a pillar of fire would devour the hot-dog men on Fifth Avenue. "You never miss your anonymity until it's gone," he says by way of acknowledging the scurrying his visiting causes. But he believes that success does not necessarily mean an invasion of the privacy snatchers. The world may know everything about the romantic exploits of Leonardo, but Fraser would prefer to live a life of relative isolation, like Harrison Ford. "Everything you need to know about an actor you can learn from his performances. I don't want to be evasive, but it's important to keep something for oneself," he says of the way he finds himself increasingly taking measures to safeguard his privacy as his ever growing legion of fans confuse the happy-go-lucky guy on-screen with the soft-spoken photo buff who haunts museums. Perhaps the enigma-on-demand function is the great innovation that has been holding up the men in the white lab coats at the Leading Man Project. And when they get their calculations right, maybe then the Fraser 2000 will be able to enjoy his success (and his privacy), as long as he does not mind stopping to chat with every ankle biter who wants him to beat his chest and swing from the nearest vine. |
hen
he and Afton were first dating, his career prospects seemed far from
assured. He failed to get the Dermot Mulroney role in My Best
Friend's Wedding. Even getting the part of Clayton Boone in Gods
and Monsters was a tough sell. Robert Downey Jr. had been the
first choice to play the gardener with whom the horror director James
Whale becomes romantically obsessed. "Brendan's stock was fairly
low at this point," remembers the film's writer-director, Bill
Condon. " The part called for someone who could do what Boris Karloff did in the Frankenstein movies, which is suggest this
incredible capacity for violence and also have a kind of poetry in his
soul, too."
