‘Encino Man’: Brendan Fraser Took Inspiration From Herding Dogs
Brendan Fraser has experienced the highs and lows of life in the entertainment industry. The actor proved himself a capable leading man throughout the ’90s in comedies and action-adventure movies. But a series of traumas caused Fraser to recede from the film world for years until he found his way back — to the delight of fans who never forgot his on-screen magnetism.
His first starring role was in 1992’s Encino Man. And despite the movie’s silly premise, Brendan Fraser put a lot of thought and intention into his performance.
‘Encino Man’ is a bad movie about a caveman out of time
Encino Man begins with misfit nerd Dave Morgan (The Lord of the Rings star Sean Astin) digging a pit for a pool in his backyard when he finds a caveman (Fraser) frozen in a chunk of ice. Dave and his friend Stoney (Pauly Shore) move their discovery to the garage, where the body thaws and returns to life. When Dave and Stoney realize the guy is alive, they name him “Link,” take him to school as an Estonian exchange student, and attempt to teach him the ways of the modern world.
According to Box Office Mojo, Encino Man made $40.7 million on a $7 million budget, but most critics were unimpressed. The film has a paltry 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and Shore earned a Razzie Award for Worst New Star.
But in the ensuing years, the film developed a cult following. It also got a bump in notoriety after the breakout success of Everything Everywhere All at Once as one of Ke Huy Quan’s last movies before he retired from acting for nearly two decades.
Brendan Fraser sought inspiration from herding dogs to find an emotional connection to his ‘Encino Man’ character
Fraser recently talked about Encino Man in a video for GQ about the most memorable characters in his career. To get into the mindstate of a caveman dropped into the ’90s, the actor pulled from his nomadic childhood. His family lived in the United States, Canada, and multiple European countries, so Fraser understood the feeling of entering a new environment as an outsider and needing to determine one’s place in that space.
“Whether I felt like I belonged or didn’t, I knew that I felt comfortable in my own skin because when you’re the new guy, you gotta find a way to fit in instantly,” the Mummy star said. “It’s just a basic survival tactic that we all have. I guess I might have really latched onto that way of working early on because there were a series of naif characters, the babe in the woods, the fish out of water, the new guy in town, and just trying to fit in [and] get along.”
Fraser approached the role with genuine care on the idea that the audience couldn’t watch Encino Man with sincerity if he weren’t sincere about his performance. He likened Link’s worldview to that of man’s best friend.
“I look toward the innocence of one of those herding dogs, that they’ll do what you say, and they wanna please you, and they wanna make sure they’re included,” Fraser explained. “That was sort of the springboard, the spirit animal I had in my approach to playing Link the thawed-out caveman. That, and I was pretty wide-eyed about being in this big Hollywood comedy at the time that was produced by Disney. I really just had to show up to work and feel like, ‘Wow, what is going on around me?’ And that’s what Link is doing all the time.”
Brendan Frasier returned from the brink to star in movies he should’ve led for years
Frasier faced years of mental anguish and other personal problems, but the “Brenaissance” is upon us.
After pushing his body to the limit for more intense roles, he underwent partial knee replacement, a laminectomy (a procedure to remove part of a vertebra from the spinal canal), and vocal cord surgery. In the same period, the then-president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Philip Berk, sexually assaulted the actor at a luncheon, Fraser alleges. (Berk denies the claims.) A lengthy divorce and his mother’s death in the years afterward sent Fraser into a deep depression that forced him to step away from acting for years.
Thankfully, he found the resolve to live beyond his pain and return to the movie landscape. Fraser appeared in Steven Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move last year and is earning real Oscars buzz (and some controversy) for his performance in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale. The actor will also appear in Martin Scorsese’s highly anticipated Killers of the Flower Moon. Fraser is back where he belongs.
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