Sophia Michaels
Brendan Fraser may have slightly overcommitted to his leading role in the 1997 film George of the Jungle. During a recent interview with Adam Sandler for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series, the actor revealed that he experienced temporary memory loss due to the strict dietary restrictions he adhered to in preparation for the role.
“I was waxed, greased, starved of carbohydrates,” Fraser said. “I would drive home after work and stop to get something to eat. I needed some cash one day, and I went to the ATM, and I couldn’t remember my PIN number because my brain was misfiring. Banging on the thing. I didn’t eat that night.”
The film, which required Fraser to be shirtless and oiled up for essentially its entire runtime, sparked envy among some viewers, despite the grueling effect it had on his own health. “You weren’t supposed to do that to us,” Sandler joked. “You did right by the character. But you did wrong by us, man. You made us feel bad about ourselves.”
Fraser previously revealed that he had sustained multiple injuries over the years while performing stunts on film sets. “I believe I probably was trying too hard, in a way that’s destructive,” he said in a 2018 interview with GQ. At the time, he shared that he had spent nearly seven years rotating in and out of hospitals for treatments that included work on his back, a partial knee replacement, vocal cord repair, and bolting together compressed spinal pads.
