Crave Online: Why was it important to you to come back and revisit Rick O'Connell?

Brendan Fraser: I missed playing Rick and the last seven years I've been waiting for the call.

Crave Online: How did you feel about Maria Bello stepping in for Rachel Weisz?

Brendan Fraser: I saw the script, out of habit, I'd worked with my friend Rachel on two pictures, you know you read the dialog, 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 has allowed for a type of re-invention of the librarian cum expeditioner-ess, I think, to have a different run at what the dynamic of that couple is now. And other actors - when you put two actors together they all have different chemistry depending on how they're cast. With Maria, Rob [Cohen] was very enthusiastic about taking advantage of everything that she wanted to be a part of in doing a movie like this and when she and I met she said, “I went into movies because  wanted to be in Indiana Jones, and I want to ride around on horses, shoot guns, crack whips, yeah!” So great! Her much needed enthusiasm was definitely infectious.

Crave Online: How would you compare Rob Cohen to Stephen Sommers?

Brendan Fraser: Well, they both know how to move big set pieces around. Rob is no stranger to film making. Having done Fast and the Furious and xXx and he's taken advantage of CGI and good effects to the best of what they have to offer in recent years. And succeeded with various degrees of popularity in terms of what contemporary audiences want in the teen to 20 or whatever age group, and up to be fair, but in the case of this picture, Rob, knowing that he had so much experience, and that he, as I learned, was an archaeologist or at least was a student of it when he was a young man at Harvard with a particular interest in Chinese history and he is a practicing Buddhist, so putting together everything that is his life's passion I think shows when I watch the picture because it's everything that he cares about all in one. And Stephen, the godfather of this generation of the Mummy, forgetting that these pictures had been made back in the '30s, he's enthusiastic like you wouldn't believe. He is a Midwestern boy from Minnesota, son of a pediatrician, family guy. My favorite moments working with Stephen on the other two pictures was on the first one, two of them actually, he set up some big shot with columns and things are gonna fall down and he's like, “Ready and DON”T SUCK! ACTION!” Things are crashing around us and you run like your pants are on fire so you don't have to do it again. And when things were getting a little bit, sticky, he'd say, “Oh man, the next movie I make is going to be like two chicks sitting on a beach on towels talking, that's it, that's all they're going to do. No more of this action stuff.” But he loves his job, they both do, making movies can be a headache but it's intensely rewarding.

Crave Online: What were the hardest stunts to do in this one?

Brendan Fraser:  We had a great stunt team, Vic Armstrong, I mean come on, he doubled for Sean Connery and got dragged behind the car I think in Indiana Jones, that's him. He knows his stuff. He directed, not a second unit but an action unit. So went off and did the big chunks. The guys I worked with were really enthusiastic and wanted to make sure everyone was safe and stunt guys oftentimes you find out they are either adrenaline junkies or they just want to be in the movies themselves, they want to do whatever it is, they want to do that performance, they want to do that stunt, and you can see they are a bit disappointed if you are going to step in and do it. But if you are going to be paid for it, and you can do it, you might as well go ahead do it. So, Patrick Kerton is my double, great guy, muscular Canadian, if you could put Canada in a bottle that would have been my stunt double. So positive about everything, team sportsman, “You're gonna go out there and you're gonna be great!” That's the way it was, that's the spirit behind it, but you get a couple of dings and bangs along the way.

Crave Online: Did you have any injuries on this one?

Brendan Fraser: Not on this one, ha-ha! No, I went into it strong and I did not limp across the finish line. It took me three times but I figured it out.

Crave Online: We heard that you asked Stephen Sommers or Lorenzo di Bonaventura for a part in G.I. Joe.

Brendan Fraser: No, I didn't ask, I BEGGED!

Crave Online: So for G.I. JOE is the cameo setting it up for a sequel at all, for you to have a bigger role?

Brendan Fraser: Wow, I'm a cameo. Can you put that in writing for me? We were in Shanghai, we were shooting nights and we were doing the chase sequence at Shanghai studios which is a remarkable place because it's all practical. Whatever period in Chinese history, colonial architecture, they've got it there. The interiors you can also shoot. Sometimes they're office buildings during the day and they're all dressed at night. It's a remarkable facility and it's working street cars and rivers, so anyway. But the allure kind of wears off when it's day five and you're miserable, it's the middle of the night, it's raining a little bit and everyone is having certain digestive issues and Bob Duscay gets off the phone and he produced the other two pictures and he's got this big old smile on his face and I said, “What do you have to be so happy about?” And he goes, “We just got the green light to do JOE from Paramount.” “Hey, congratulations, that's great, good for you...can I be in it?! PLEASE?! I'll wash your dog! I had a G.I. Joe. He dangled from his parachute strings in a tree one winter...” And they called me.

Crave Online: I can see you in the costume already.

Brendan Fraser: Wait a minute, now let's get the record straight though, I am NOT Gung Ho. I am not a refugee from the Village People, all respect to Gung Ho, I am not that character. I made a personal choice and kind of ripped it off and decided I would be some sort of hybrid of a great-great grandson to Rick O'Connell, so, that's all I'm tellin' you which is about everything because it's a cameo. Next question.

Crave Online: So it's not Shipwreck or any of the other characters?

Brendan Fraser: No.

Crave Online: Is it a new character or an existing character?

Brendan Fraser: I'm gonna have to speak with Bob about that one. I seriously am. I have been meaning to have that conversation with him. I should do that before Comic-Con too. Note to self, get on the horn with Bob.

Crave Online: Do you think they'll do an action figure of you?

Brendan Fraser: Gosh I hope so. They made one of Rick O'Connell the first time we did a movie. This is true. They gave me the plastic doll and I was like, "Yes, I have arrived." It was this doll, right, and it didn't look anything like me and the eyeballs were painted on, one's higher than the other, and in one arm he had a permanent grip to stick a weapon in it and in the other one he's got a stick of dynamite in it and a little LED on the end of it and if you raised the left arm a little speaker would go, “Well, I just knew this was going to be a perfect day!” And that was a line that got cut [laughter] and they didn't even use me, it was really high pitched and effeminate sounding. And if you raised the right arm on the doll with the dynamite stick it would go, “BOOM!” And if you looked closer you would see that the little speaker holes were on the ass of the doll. “I just knew this was going to be a great day!” “BOOM!” [laughter]

Crave Online: Was there never a George of the Jungle toy?

Brendan Fraser: No, there was a plush toy, they missed the train on that one.

Crave Online: Plush?

Brendan Fraser: Yeah, a little squishy toy, they were like making monkeys and a guy in a loin cloth. Then they went, "Hey, wait, they like it? It's a hit? Oh, it's a hit, d'oh! We forgot to market it and everything." Oh well, that's the movies. Not my bad!