Academy Award-winner Brendan Fraser is our guest this week on the Awards Tour Podcast, and Rotten Tomatoes Awards Editor Jacqueline Coley discusses his new film Rental Family, a heartwarming dramedy where he plays an American actor who lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese “rental family” agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. Fraser talks about meeting the director HIKARI, immersing himself in Japanese culture, what fans can expect in the new Mummy film, and working with such legends as Pauly Shore, Ricki Lake, and famous “theater geek wizard nerd” Martin Scorsese.
Be sure to check out Rental Family, which is now in theaters, and we’ll see you on the next stop of the Awards Tour.
Jacqueline Coley for Rotten Tomatoes: So you play an actor living in Japan who is essentially hired out to play various figures in funerals, family events, and just in some people’s lives. And there’s a lot of emotional entanglement with a lot of the folks who are doing this job. What I think is interesting for you is sort of the actor’s exercise of it, because there’s a lot of meta aspects of it that you can kind of play with this actor, because every actor has had a moment where they don’t know what they’re going to do next. So how was that for you, playing that part out on screen?
Brendan Fraser: I might blow your mind when I say this, but Phillip Vandarploeug, my character, is not a very good actor. He’s someone who’s been out of the United States for about seven years, and we don’t have to wonder too much why, but he’s happy to be reinventing himself. And during his time there, he was hired as the token White guy, as many expats take advantage of that angle in Tokyo, I learned, to distinguish themselves when taking jobs in advertisement and that kind of thing. So I think he got hired to do this toothpaste commercial, “Mr. Clear-bright Man,” which was convenient, put a little money in his pocket, and he thinks he might have started his acting career around that time. So, let’s disabuse ourselves of any creative artistry that he might have.
But the point is he’s searching, he’s looking for something better, and he might not even know it yet. But he does kind of back up into this opportunity with an agency that rents members of families to their clients — the clients being people who are bereft of a daughter, a sister, a boyfriend, their mother, for whichever reasons — and to fill that void. Even though it might be only make-believe, hence needing actors to do the job convincingly. What happens is the more thornier, prickly ethical and moral questions arise, and that’s where this director, HIKARI, comes in. Because the movie lives in that area in-between, where we have to decide, “What is make-believe, and how does it serve a purpose, to give the service to people that they need, even if everyone knows they’re pretending, and is that acceptable?” And as it turns out, Yeah… Yeah, it is.
Rental Family is now playing in theaters.
