'I was choked out': Brendan Fraser recalls how he 'nearly' died while shooting a scene for 'The Mummy'
LOS ANGLES, CALIFORNIA: Brendan Fraser claimed that he "nearly" died while filming a sequence in the 1999 action-adventure film 'The Mummy'. Fraser, 54, starred as Rick O'Connell in Stephen Sommers' film, which spawned a slew of sequels and spinoffs.
He recalled the accident on 'The Kelly Clarkson Show' after being asked by Clarkson, "Speaking of the Mummy is this the one where you almost died?." Fraser replied by saying "Nearly, well I was choked out, accidentally, there is a hanging scene..."
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'I was standing on my toes'
There is a hanging sequence in the first movie of the franchise, and the rope around his neck tightened too much during the shot. Kelly replied, "Well I know what you are talking about...the sequence, but I don't know that really happened...they tightened it so much like what happened," she asked as the scene was played on the screen to which Fraser reacted in excitement "Oh Gosh" and he went on to explain.
“I was standing on my toes like this, with the rope," Fraser got up and imitated the scene, and said, "and you only got so far to go". “And, Stephen ran over, and he said, ‘Hey, it doesn’t really look like you’re, you know, choking — can you sell it?’ And I was like, ‘All right, fine.’ So I thought, ‘One more take, man.'”
When the director stepped in for the final shot, Fraser stood on his toes, and the crew guy holding the rope above him pulled it a little higher.
'Same thing happened to Mel Gibson'
“When the camera swooped around I went up on the toes and the guy holding the rope above me...he pulled it up a little higher, I was stuck on my toes and I had nowhere to go but down,” The Whale actor told the host. “And so he was pulling up, and I was going down, and the next thing I knew, my elbow was in my ear, the world was sideways, and there was gravel in my teeth, and everyone was really quiet,” he recalled.
He continued, "and there was a stunt guy, the coordinator was there, and he was going, ‘Brendan, Brendan wake up.’" Fraser recalled waking up, adding, the coordinator said, "Congratulations, you’re in the club — the same thing happened to Mel Gibson on Braveheart.”' Fraser said that he responded to him by saying, "Thanks, I think?! I wanna go home!"