Brendan Fraser has made a big impression in Hollywood, from portraying a man raised by apes to helming an action-film franchise and beyond.
He later studied the craft at a small acting college in New York City before making his film debut in 1991 with a role in Dogfight playing Sailor No.
And I got my Screen Actors Guild card and an extra 50 bucks for the stunt adjustment, ‘cause they threw me into a pinball machine,” Fraser recalled during a February 2018 interview with GQ of his first Hollywood gig.
The film, in which Fraser wore a loincloth that highlighted his muscles, eventually grossed $175 million worldwide.
That success was just the beginning for the actor, who landed the role of Rick O’Connell in The Mummy franchise shortly thereafter.
“Brendan is one of the few guys in Hollywood, if not the only guy, who is movie-star handsome and built like an Adonis, but not afraid to take a pie in the face,” the Tomb of the Dragon Emperor director Rob Cohen told the Orange County Register in July 2008.
“By the time I did the third Mummy picture in China I was put together with tape and ice — just, like, really nerdy and fetishy about ice packs.
The wear and tear on his body eventually led to surgery and lots of recovery.
Fraser seemingly disappeared from the limelight in the mid to late ‘00s, but he did appear in a few films here and there.