Watch out for that bridge!
“George of the Jungle” star Brendan Fraser joked last week that he had “almost an apology to make” to the city of San Francisco for a scene from the 1997 film that caused a bit of a ruckus on the iconic Bay Bridge.
At a recent Mill Valley screening of his new movie, “The Whale,” Fraser spoke with SFGATE about filming a stunt sequence in which George rescues a distressed parachutist dangling helplessly from the uprights. According to Fraser, Disney hung a deflated parachute and a mannequin hundreds of feet in the air while shooting the bridge scene — alarming civilians and at least one news station.
“It brought traffic to a standstill on either side of the bridge,” Fraser recalled.
“My trailer was on the other side in a parking lot. ... I had the TV on, and ‘Oprah’ got interrupted because there was a special news report with helicopters saying a parachute is dangling on the bridge. And I’m going, “Wait a minute.” I’m looking at the helicopters and TV — somebody didn’t pull a permit, somebody’s going to get in trouble with the mayor’s office. So I can only apologize for that.”
The Mill Valley Film Festival screened “The Whale” roughly a month after the Darren Aronofsky drama premiered at the Venice Film Festival. The highly anticipated film received a six-minute standing ovation in Venice that brought Fraser to tears.
Recently, Aronofsky responded to criticism he has drawn for casting Fraser, who wore prosthetics and makeup to play a 600-pound, reclusive English teacher who uses a wheelchair.
“We tried to research actors with obesity,” Aronofsky told Variety. “Outside of not being able to find an actor who could pull off the emotions of the role, it just becomes a crazy chase. Like, if you can’t find a 600-pound actor, is a 300-pound actor or 400-pound actor enough?
“From a health perspective, it’s prohibitive,” the director added. “It’s an impossible role to fill with a real person dealing with those issues.”
“The Whale” hits theaters Dec. 9.
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