Brendan FRASER is big man in Hollywood.
The 6-foot-3 actor has a firm handshake and a marquee smile, but when he talks, he's so soft-spoken -- and aware of that fact -- that he's constantly leaning in and stooping over during conversations. But he's aware of the lean as well; he acknowledges that he routinely makes himself smaller to fit in.
"I've always had a bit of a complex about being over 6-2," he confesses. "I've developed bad posture; I always try to become diminutive and stoop so as not to feel I'm dominating."
This from a bona-fide action star with well more than a billion dollars in worldwide box-office grosses and two high-profile movies out in less than a month -- "Journey to the Center of the Earth," which opened Friday (including 3-D showings in some venues), and "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" in theaters Aug. 1.
It's that larger-than-life image that Fraser says follows him around the globe. People in seemingly every country he visits ask him when the next "Mummy" film -- in which he plays intrepid adventurer Rick O'Connell -- is coming out. They rarely ask him about working with Ian McKellen on the critically acclaimed indie movie "Gods and Monsters" or Graham Greene's prescience in writing "The Quiet American."
"I suppose everyone wants to enjoy themselves," says Fraser over a bowl of corn chowder at a Santa Monica restaurant. The actor is clearly proudest of those smaller films he's appeared in, including 2005 best picture winner "Crash," but is cheerfully unapologetic about his higher-grossing, less-cerebral work in the likes of "George of the Jungle."
"Larger-budget fare . . . heck, I go to the movies to have a good time," he says. "I want to be taken somewhere else. I want to be shown something new. I want to have the opportunity to laugh out loud. Put whatever's on your mind aside for a while. And I'm grateful every time I have a chance to make a film."
He's not kidding. Fraser still feels the bruises from stumbles like 2001's "Monkeybone." He's also honest about a period of time after the second "Mummy" movie in which he says he "couldn't get arrested."
"Then, when you least expect it and stop working so hard, stop caring how you're perceived by others in the industry, you start enjoying yourself again and the job gets a lot easier," he says.
