A star is born. Overnight success. Going out a youngster and coming back a star.
It's hard to discuss what's happened to Brendan Fraser without resorting to the hoariest of show-biz cliches. During the summer of the Goodwill Games, he was an intern with Intiman Theatre, having appeared in Ellensburg summer stock and in "Romeo and Juliet" at the Actors' Conservatory at Cornish College.Two years later, the 23-year-old Fraser is the star of a series of high-profile movies, including a probing drama about schoolboy anti-Semitism, "School Ties."
Earlier this year, he was seen in the title role in Disney's "Encino Man." Last year at this time he was playing Martin Sheen's son in a TV movie, "Guilty Until Proven Innocent," for which he received higher praise than his co-stars. He's also acted in a CBS pilot that never aired, although that could change as his newfound fame grows.
What started it all was a tiny role in Nancy Savoca's "Dogfight," which was filmed in Seattle a couple of years ago with River Phoenix and Lili Taylor.
"I worked just a day on that, with many other Cornish people, but I had a very keen interest in what happened there," said Fraser. "I wanted to be there. I also had to pay off some bills that were maturing."
Shortly after finishing a job stringing up Christmas lights around Seattle, he drove to Los Angeles, got an agent and found himself breezing through auditions.
Sherry Lansing, the co-producer of "School Ties," was having a rough time casting the lead in the film: a Jewish quarterback who must conceal his identity in a 1955 prep school that needs him to win a few games. According to a New York Times interview, she was four weeks away from production when Fraser read for her. She was instantly won over.
"This person emerges whom you can't take your eyes off," she said. "He's like all the good ones. He becomes the person."
Speaking by phone recently from Dallas, where he was part of a whirlwind publicity tour with several other "School Ties" actors ("They're pampering the hell out of us"), Fraser was just as pleased that he got the part.
"I was excited, to tell you the truth, to be acting in something I personally feel very strongly about," he said. "The film has a real strength in its convictions about prejudice - what it has to say about the way we treat each other.
"This film has reaffirmed my beliefs," he added, citing recent statistics on the proliferation of hate crimes: "We all know it's a problem and we should treat others as we want to be treated. Prejudice doesn't discriminate, whether you're Jewish or black or HIV positive or gay. And these crimes are on the rise - on college campuses! - where people are supposed to know things, to be above it all.
"And I understand the world of schoolboys, the pressure for achieving. There is such competition that people strike at the most sensitive points. There was not much fighting at the boarding school I went to, but I saw situations like this.
"When I got the script, I read only half of it because I really wanted to do it and I was scared I'd be upset that I wouldn't get it. That may be a fatalistic attitude, but casting is all voodoo to me."
Lansing and a Seattle-based screenwriter, Darryl Ponicsan ("Cinderella Liberty"), have been working on "School Ties" for several years. Their last collaboration was the 1981 sleeper hit, "Taps," a military-school drama that helped make stars of Tom Cruise and Sean Penn.
If "School Ties" has a similar success, it could do the same not only for Fraser, but his talented co-stars Chris O'Donnell (Jessica Lange's son in "Men Don't Leave") and Matt Damon (Brian Dennehy's son in "Rising Son"). More recently, "Dead Poets Society," which is also set in a 1950s prep school, gave a big boost to Ethan Hawke's career.
Born in Indianapolis, Fraser grew up in Europe, Canada and the United States, attended Sacred Heart School in Bellevue and a boarding school in Toronto. His parents have lived in Redmond since the 1970s.
He has an infectious laugh and an unpretentious manner, though he says that when he came out of Cornish he was "somewhat Puritanical about `my craft, my art.' " Preparing for "School Ties" emphasized different matters.
"We had a whole month of football practice before filming," he said. "I'd just hacked around a bit in school. It was a real boot camp for the actors."
The director, Robert Mandel ("F/X," "Independence Day"), "had a very close rapport with us and he rolled a lot of film. He wanted to leave himself plenty of choices in the editing room, which is fine with me. I'll work all day."
Although it was released first, "Encino Man" was filmed after Fraser finished "School Ties." He was initially reluctant to play a frozen caveman who is brought back to life in a Los Angeles suburb, but Disney persevered.
"I didn't really want to do a teen comedy, but it was a 180-degree turn from the heavy-duty drama of the other films," he said. "I didn't have any dialogue, and I like broad, physical comedy. So often you can say what you can't say in words."
Fraser also feels that Disney introduced him to another audience that might now want to see a movie that's about going back to school.
Since "Encino Man," Fraser has completed an independent film, "Twenty Bucks," co-starring Spalding Gray and Linda Hunt, and he's just started shooting another movie in Los Angeles: Percy Adlon's "Younger and Younger," in which he plays the son of Donald Sutherland and Lolita Davidovich.
"That should keep me busy until Christmas, when I hope to be back in Seattle," he said. "I'd kill for a latte."