There’s a lot to love about Brendan Fraser.
The American-Canadian actor has been winning over moviegoers since he debuted as the once-frozen caveman Link in the 1992 comedy Encino Man, a film that shot the then 24-year-old into the public eye and eventually landed him a series of romances, comedies, and dramas, all of which led him to the ‘90s classic George of the Jungle. The loveable comedy remains a favorite among Fraser’s filmography, as does his time as Rick O’Connell in The Mummy, a movie that can’t and won’t ever be forgotten and one which officially solidified Fraser as a bonafide movie star.
Before his disappearance from the public eye — a slowly developing incident that occurred over the course of the late-2000s to mid-2010s, propelled by numerous health complications and even a sexual assault allegation against the then-president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Philip Berk — Fraser was a jack of all trades.
His career hardly ever looked the same from one year to the next, choosing to star in a comedy one minute and a dramatic romance the next. In fact, because he’s never considered himself a “one trick pony,” as he puts it, it makes sense why he was hesitant to don the Superman cape.
That’s right, there was once a time — pre-Henry Cavill — when Brendan Fraser almost became the next Man of Steel.
How Brendan Fraser almost became the next Superman
Long before James Gunn and Peter Safran took over DC Studios as co-CEOs and rebooted the superhero franchise as we know it today — in fact, long before Henry Cavill even took up the mantle as Kal-El in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel or Brandon Routh played the Kryptonian in Superman Returns — Brendan Fraser was once tapped to play the part.
In speaking with Howard Stern on The Howard Stern Show, Fraser recounted how he, and apparently all of Hollywood, had been asked to audition for the part. This was around 2002 or 2003, according to him.
As Fraser explains it, he went into the audition process with a great deal of hesitancy – hesitancy that likely showed in his audition and ultimately resulted in him not getting the part. However, while there was a disappointment, there was also a relief since becoming the Man of Steel would immortalize him as the comic book superhero well beyond his acting career.
“Of course, it’s a life-changing, amazing opportunity, but I had to reconcile with, ‘okay, say you do get the job to be the Man of Steel, it’s going to be chipped on your gravestone. Are you okay with that? And forevermore be known as the Man of Steel?’”
Fraser went on to explain how going through the endeavor felt like making a deal with the devil, as though he were trading his morals for clout and wealth.
“There was sort of a Faustian bargain that went into feeling – and I think inherently I didn’t want to be known for only one thing because I prided myself on diversity my whole professional life – and I’d like – I mean, I’m not a one-trick pony.”
“Probably inherently in my screen test – I think that’s why you test – they could kind of see I was only there like 98 percent.”
That missing two percent wound up losing him the part, as we know, which Fraser admits was disappointing nonetheless. As we know, Brandon Routh eventually got the part down the road for Superman Returns, a movie many fans regard as a relatively average film; neither great nor awful. Just average.
Fraser’s notoriously lighthearted demeanor likely would’ve lent his version of Clark Kent a vastly different air than both Routh’s and Cavill’s iterations. Who’s to say whether that would have been for the better or worse? What we can say is had Fraser become Superman, we likely never would have gotten the “Brendan Fraser renaissance” we did in 2022, nor his Oscar-nominated performance in The Whale.
As they say, everything happens for a reason.