The many faces of Brendan Fraser

Despite his charm and beefy good looks, Brendan Fraser likes playing "fish out of water" characters. This is probably why he was so effective as the cave man thawed from a glacier in Encino Man, or as an apeman who grew up in the wilds in George of the Jungle or as the boy thrust into the streets of modern day Los Angeles after 30 years in a bomb shelter in Blast from the Past. This is also why his role as Eliot Richards in the forthcoming comedy Bedazzled is for him a virtual smorgasbord of goodies and a dream come true.

Richards is a socially-inept technical support supervisor who is consumed with an unrequited love for his beautiful co-worker Alison Gardner played by Frances O’ Connor, who doesn’t even realize they share the same air. After enduring a long line of humiliations, he makes a desperate plea to change his life and get the girl. Imagine his surprise when the hottest woman in the universe answers his prayer. Life for Eliot is finally about to get hotter. His cry for help has been answered by the devil herself, who is played by Elizabeth Hurley. In an instant, Eliot has everything he wants and can be anyone he has ever desired.

Bedazzled enables Brendan to portray several totally different roles in a single movie. Aside from the bumbling Eliot, he gets to become a rich and powerful crime lord, a sensitive poet, a rock and roll idol, a basketball superstar and a Pulitzer Prize winning author.

Fraser is the son of a Canadian diplomat who grew up in various cities in Canada, the United States and Europe. He was 17 years old when he decided to become an actor and began his training at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. His first film was Dogfight, where he played a marine recruit bound for Vietnam and which starred River Phoenix. This was followed by a series of breakthrough exposures like the title role in Encino Man, the Jewish student hiding his religion in Old School Ties, the Harvard senior who learns that education does not necessarily come from a book in With Honors and that of the jungle lord, George, which placed him in the $100 million category at the box-office.

The commercial success of George of the Jungle was followed by artistic approbation for his portrayal of the gardener with whom film director James Whale becomes obsessed and an even bigger blockbuster at the box-office with The Mummy.

Bedazzled is a remake of ‘60s movies that starred Dudley Moore as a fry cook tempted by the devil played by Peter Cook with Racquel Welch as the object of Moore’s affections.

Bedazzled is a Twentieth Century Fox production locally distributed by Viva International Pictures.