Actor Brendan Fraser revealed the drastic lengths he went to desperately trying to achieve his ideal appearance for his role in George of the Jungle.
The 54-year-old actor spoke with Adam Sandler as part of Variety’s Actors On Actors series, in which he discussed the effects of starvation during filming of the 1997 film.
Despite achieving his goal body, Fraser said the drastic weight-loss measures negatively impacted his mental well-being.
“I was waxed. Starved for carbs,” recalls Fraser. “I would drive home after work and stop to eat.”
“One day I needed some cash and I went to the ATM and I couldn’t remember my pin number because my brain was freezing. Hit that thing. I didn’t eat anything that night,” he added.
Fraser said it was important to him to achieve a muscular physique for his role in the film because there was “no wardrobe” for his character.
“You shouldn’t have done that to us,” Sandler quipped. “You got the character right. But you did us wrong, man. You made us feel bad.”
In the hit film, which received a sequel in 2003, Fraser played George – a man raised by apes in an African jungle. He then falls in love with an American heiress, played by Leslie Mann, during their tour of Uganda.
Brendan Fraser appears in a scene from the 1997 hit George of the Jungle. ©Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy
The film became a box office hit, grossing $180 million worldwide on a budget of $55 million.
Fraser recently apologized for the massive traffic jam that brought cars to a standstill in San Francisco while filming a scene for the film.
Fraser said the scene, which wreaked havoc on the city’s Oakland Bay Bridge and spanned 8.4 miles, involved his character climbing up the bridge to rescue a skydiver, for which a dummy was used.
Brendan Fraser and Leslie Mann appear together in the 1997 film George of the Jungle. ©Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy
However, concerned viewers were led to believe it was a real person who got stuck up there, which subsequently caused a major traffic jam.
“Disney has a mannequin hanging from the posts on a parachute. It stopped traffic on both sides of the bridge,” the 53-year-old told SFGate. “My caravan was on the other side in a parking lot. I only remember seeing the…bridge.”