our first guest ladies and gentlemen is a talented actor who stars in a brand new film entitled The
Mummy it opens tomorrow here's Brendan Fraser Brendan nice to see you again you were here
not so long ago with another movie you just keep making movies left and right don't you
um I'm like a shark yeah and then like big big movies and of course here now you got you got
the mummy this is a a new version of a classic old uh Horror Story right it's been over 50 years
since uh Universal films has released a mummy movie and what we've done is given it a brand
new look a reinvention really the creature who we all remember to have been stumbling around in
the dark wrapped in bandages one of these deals right and you just want to yell to his victim
run faster and he always trips and drops his pith helmet and gets strangled but uh what we've done
is uh recreated him using industrial Light and magic and Arnold vasu's performance to create a
character who's Fierce who can shape change who descends the ten plagues on the earth and he's
looking for his lost love so the premise is still the same wow so that's what it is it's a guy who
was who was buried alive that's what happened yeah he got some trouble with the pharaoh's mistress
about 3000 years ago and then in 1921 when I um stumble upon the Lost ruins of his City he's
unwittingly awakened and it's our job to put him back to sleep but the key here unless I misread
you the key here is he was buried alive you see he was buried alive and then and then dozing
essentially for for decades centuries money's own business and now and who wouldn't be he's pissed
right that's what it is yeah
but you're you're not you're not the mummy no I'm not the mummy I play Rick O'Connell
you chased the mummy you're chasing the mummy you're with your French Foreign Legion you're
French foreigners I could be anyone capable of anything um I get promoted to Colonel on
the spot when we meet him because uh well everyone else turns tail when 10
000 angry charging Tuareg Warriors are attacking us on the ruins of the lost city um it's a tall
order yeah you got your work cut out for you there yeah yeah uh and and uh uh where did you film uh
The Mummy epic here in North Africa on in the Sahara Desert where Lawrence of Arabia was shot
oh man so what is that like it must be beautiful there it's a sort of a majestic and Barren and uh
Exquisite a bit scary a little real somewhere sandstorms would kick up and they would always
cause us to have to stop and stop work early and sometimes the sand just get everywhere actually
but um he would get where did you get that sand well it's in my shaving kit
how long are we actually in the desert three and a half months
um with camels and uh um uh stunt man and uh which is worse the camels are the
stunt man I mean you're going to be in the desert which would you rather have with you
almost rather the camels and uh now and when you do that is there you probably there's a
luxury hotel it's like the the Sahara Marriott something right we did have a hotel of a sort it
was uh painted purple and pink with green clouds on the inside of it it was really disturbing to
tell you disturbing yeah well especially when the Czechoslovakian stuntmen would drink too much and
Stack Up coffee tables and chairs and practice stunts on their days off and videotape it so
they could laugh at it at breakfast the next day but what what is life like I mean or are you is it
primitive because you're so far from civilization or is it not that bad is it just oh yeah they're
shooting right behind the Cabana over there on the other side of the pool no the lap pool not
that pool you know no Dave we were really way out there we were in such um probably so far
away from civilization at one point um my driver a tournament we were coming home he said look
over that mountain range and I say yeah it says if you go over there you won't come back yeah that's
Algiers and later we learned in we got back to London that the producers would take a kidnapping
Insurance on all of us you know but really how uncivilized can it be if you've got a driver
you know you're in a limo for God's sake what are we talking about here I know but did you uh
did you did you have to ride camels and stuff well they had to train us to
um well learn to you know contend with them uh camels have a bad rap for being temperamental and
argumentative and you know bad breath but I got on really well with mine his name in Arabic started
with a B I couldn't pronounce it so I named him Barney Barney is good yeah Bernie um uh developed
a hemorrhoid problem when someone tied his saddle too tight so he had to be replaced by stunt camel
um who was tired all the time and he didn't want to work and he was the clumsiest camel
so he named it Marmaduke and if there was a pebble in the middle of the desert he would
trip on that Pebble guaranteed every time the only time he would run fast is when
they called lunch and and I understand all the other problems with the camel
but why is his breath a problem what really what does that keep you from doing exactly
thank you how does that get in the way is it hot must be hotter than hell there in the desert
that's what I hear we clocked in at 130 before breakfast oh man 1 30. yeah the cameras were
jammed yeah and did you did it take a toll on you was it I mean punishingly hot was it withering it
was deceptively hot this sort of temperature was that you didn't really know how tired you
really were so the biggest challenge on this picture for me was just to not come off with
you know my tongue hanging out of my left mouth looking like some sort of wimp version of the
hero so we have to run again and again and again through the sand with the bullets going off and
everything and the director's only instruction to me was look cool and don't die action yeah laughs
uh and you you were nearly injured on the film they've had a thing where you're supposed to be
hung and then oh yeah what happened well it's kind of hard to talk about tell you the truth
but I will um in the beginning of the film it's a convention to show how tough the hero is so he
has to survive his own death and I get thrown in jail and uh on that morning it's uh my execution
is scheduled um and uh I'm the stunt man of course stepped in and was pushed from a scaffold and fell
and it was quite disturbing and then of course they send in actor boy for the close-ups and so
they didn't afford me the luxury of wearing a harness they put you in the uh the the rope and
everything just a rope around my neck a plain old Garden variety rope and uh they tightened
it up and the director came over and said I don't know the tension didn't look like it was you know
realistic wasn't matching before can we just take it up a little bit more and tighten it up
a little yeah and I said I don't know well okay just one take and and so the camera spun around
and it landed on my face and I'll remember is uh this sort of volume kind of like sound
going and then the next thing I know my elbow is in my ear and there's all these Medics going
hello Brendan wake up and the stunt guy runs up to him he goes hey great join the club Mel
Gibson did the same thing on Braveheart I'm like I love it so you're Nearly Dead
technically
I did die but there was nothing or actually technically deadly dead red doctor told me
for like 12 or 14 seconds but I guarantee you there was nothing Auto or erotic about it yeah
Captain do you see how tough it is making movies
star of The Mummy it opens tomorrow hey good good
to see you again thank you Brendan Fraser kid [Music]