Brendan Fraser laid it all out in the open regarding his career, especially that one scene with Matt Damon in School Ties.
The actor appeared on The Howard Stern Show as part of his awards circuit for his Oscar nomination for The Whale. Stern said his favorite film Fraser has ever done, apart from The Whale, is the 1992 teen drama School Ties. Fraser starred alongside Damon, Ben Affleck, and Chris O’Donnell before they were big names in Hollywood.
The actor opened up about being a young actor and how his passion for his career caused him to take a few risks – like being fully nude and wrestling with Damon in a shower.
Let’s Talk About That School Ties Shower Scene
“When you’re an actor, and you’re starting off, you’re ambitious and game for pretty much anything. They say jump, you say how high?” Fraser said. Still, he credits the infamous scene for being so raw and emotional.
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“I appreciated that this isn’t really for wow or a scintillating factor of going, ‘Hey, look at that. Naked people,'” Fraser continued. “The point of it was that when Damon’s character says what he says about David, he just reveals who he is. His anti-Semitism and his prejudice is stripped down naked and it’s ugly. And the door is locked and they fight over it like shaved apes that need to be pulled apart because they’ve run out of things to say to one another, and it just turns into an ugly knuckle-dusting fit.”
Brendan Fraser Recalls Reading With Matt Damon
Nevertheless, it was Fraser’s first film and he said doing the scene was a bit “scary.” But we have to ask, which was scarier, filming the shower scene or walking into an audition and seeing Matt Damon as your reading partner?
“I just remember thinking, ‘He’s already got the job, and this is my shot here. Okay, don’t mess this up, bring things down a size,'” he told Stern. “I was used to being on stage at that point in my life and playing to the back row, and I knew that I needed to match pitch with Matt, so I felt like I was his wingman or something, and I think that’s why I got hired.”
In the film, Fraser’s character David Greene attends a prestigious prep school on a football scholarship. Though he rises up the social ladder, he feels pressure to hide the fact that he is Jewish from his classmates and teammates. Fraser recounted how he related to his character because he felt like an outsider looking in.
“At some point in our lives or another, we’ve all felt like we’ve had our nose pressed up against the glass, and there’s something keeping us out, and we want to be a part of what’s in there.
“In this case, David wanted to be a part of this school. He wanted the camaraderie, he wanted the glory that sport brought him. But it came at a cost, and the barrier was that he was Jewish, and their anti-Semitism kept him out. So for all that need of wanting to belong, I identified with that because I felt like I want to be a part of this Hollywood also. I don’t know if I’m in the club or not… yet, if at all.”
If you needed a sign to go watch School Ties, I guess this is it.
The beloved actor is currently celebrating his first Academy Award nomination for best actor for his role in The Whale.
