Before enduring hours of prosthetic makeup to play the titular star in Darren Aronofsky’sThe Whale,Brendan Fraserhas put up with a lot of crap over the decades. On the set ofGeorge of the Jungle, the star revealed, it was monkey crap.
Speaking toDeadlinewhile recently accepting an American Rivera Award at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, Fraser recalled his experience working with live monkeys on the 1997 Disney film:
“There were real monkeys on [George of the Jungle], Mr. Binks was real. He was a very naughty, little monkey… Mr. Binks was a boy monkey, Mr. Binks was a Disney monkey. Boy Disney monkeys don’t show their boyness in a Disney film. So Mr. Binks had a little bikini, little fur bikini, and the thing about apes, monkeys in particular, they become teenagers at some point, and they age out, and they become incorrigible and they bite and scratch – and that’s nasty and scary. And he was just on the cusp that week, where he found himself, and he had just enough attitude that he got a little bit overconfident about acting, and he would get frustrated when he didn’t get his take the way he wanted it. He was trained to whisper in my ear, he stuck his tongue so far into my eardrum, and I was like, ‘Come on, ew.’”
If that wasn’t enough monkey business for theMonkeybonestar, the pubescent Mr. Binks proceeded to go truly ape, as Fraser continued:
“And he got mad, rips off his fur bikini – wait for it – disappears into the rafters, starts tearing apart the set deck. There’s flowers and all kinds of crap flying around the place. And yeah, he was, he was having a monkey moment. And the trainer came out and was like, ‘Stop that right now, Mr. Binks! No, no!’ I was killing myself laughing. Never work with animals.”
Related:Brendan Fraser Turned Down George of the Jungle 2 Over Lowball Offer
Brendan Fraser Accepts AARP Award for The WhaleRole
While his comeback role has been eclipsed by the considerably youngerElvislead Austin Butler, more recently during the BAFTA andGolden GlobesAwards,Fraser recently won Best Actorat the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards. While accepting his award, the actor admitted he didn’t think he could have handled all the critical praise he’s been receiving when he was in his 30s:
“I know life doesn’t begin at 50, but it can yield renewal and reward beyond our wildest dreams. I wouldn’t have known what to do with it, 20-25 years ago. It would have been too much, too soon. Now that I’m 54, I feel more comfortable, more qualified, more confident. And I feel happier for those who are coming up, the way I did.”
