Brendan Fraser

His maternal uncle, George Genereux, was the only Canadian to win a gold medal in the 1952 Summer Olympics, at the Olympic Trap.

Fraser's three older brothers are Kevin, Regan, and Sean.

They have Irish, Scottish, German, Czech, and French-Canadian ancestry.

He holds dual Canadian and American citizenship.

Fraser's family moved often during his childhood, living in Eureka, California; Seattle, Washington; Ottawa, Ontario; the Netherlands; and Switzerland.

He attended Upper Canada College, a private boarding school in Toronto.

Brendan James Fraser (born December 3, 1968) is a Canadian-American actor.

Fraser was born on December 3, 1968, in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Canadian parents Carol Mary (née Généreux; 1937–2016) and Peter Fraser.

He is the youngest of their four sons.

His mother was a sales counselor, and his father was a former journalist who worked as a Canadian foreign service officer for the Government Office of Tourism.

While on vacation in London, England, in the 1970s, he attended his first professional theatre show, Oliver!, in the West End, which began his interest in acting.

Fraser graduated from Seattle's Cornish College of the Arts in 1990.

He began acting at a small acting college in New York City.

Fraser planned on studying toward a Master of Fine Arts in Acting from Southern Methodist University, but stopped in Hollywood on the way and decided to remain there to work in film.

In 1991, Fraser made his film debut with a small role as a Seaman headed to Vietnam in Dogfight.

Fraser had his breakthrough in 1992 with the comedy Encino Man and the drama School Ties.

He got his first leading film role alongside Sean Astin and Pauly Shore in the 1992 comedy film Encino Man, where he played a frozen pre-historic caveman who is thawed out in the present day.

The film was a moderate box office success and has gained a cult following.

That same year he starred in School Ties with fellow rising actors Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Chris O'Donnell as a Jewish star quarterback confronting embedded anti-semitism in private prep school society.

He made cameo appearances in the Pauly Shore films Son in Law (1993) and In the Army Now (1994), reprising his Encino Man role.

He gained further prominence for his starring roles in the comedies With Honors (1994) and George of the Jungle (1997) and emerged as a star playing Rick O'Connell in The Mummy trilogy (1999–2008).

Between 1994 and 1996, he starred in several box office failures such as With Honors (1994) with Joe Pesci, Airheads (1994) with Steve Buscemi & Adam Sandler, The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995), Mrs. Winterbourne (1996) and The Twilight of the Golds (1997).

He also had a small part in the 1995 film Now and Then.

He had his first major box office success with the 1997 comedy film George of the Jungle which was based on the animated series of the same title created by Jay Ward.

He took on dramatic roles in Gods and Monsters (1998), The Quiet American (2002), and Crash (2004), and further fantasy roles in Bedazzled (2000) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008).

He received critical acclaim for his dramatic role in 1998's Gods and Monsters, which was based on the life of James Whale (Ian McKellen), who directed Frankenstein.

The film was written and directed by Bill Condon, and follows the loss of creativity, ambiguous sexuality and the bond between a heterosexual gardener (played by Fraser) and a homosexual, tortured and ailing filmmaker (played by McKellen).

He achieved his biggest commercial success when he portrayed the lead adventurer Rick O'Connell in the fantasy adventure film The Mummy (1999) and its sequel The Mummy Returns (2001).

In between these successes, he also starred in the box office bombs Dudley Do-Right (1999) (which was based on another Jay Ward animated series) and the stop-motion/live-action fantasy comedy Monkeybone (2001); though he did have moderate success with the romantic comedy Blast from the Past (1999) and the fantasy comedy Bedazzled (2000), a remake of the 1967 British film of the same name.

He lent his voice for the unreleased animated film Big Bug Man, with Marlon Brando.

Fraser's film work slowed from the late 2000s to mid-2010s due to the poor box office performances of many of his films, and various health and personal problems, including the fallout from a sexual assault committed against him in 2003 by Philip Berk, the then-president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Fraser starred as "Brick" in the West End production of Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in September 2001, directed by Anthony Page.

Castmates included Ned Beatty, Frances O'Connor and Gemma Jones.

The show closed on January 12, 2002, with Fraser garnering many excellent reviews.

In 2002, he starred alongside Michael Caine in the political drama The Quiet American which was well received by critics.

The following year, he starred in the live-action/animated film Looney Tunes: Back in Action as its human lead, D.J. Drake (he also voiced the Tasmanian Devil).

In 2004, he appeared as part of an ensemble cast in the Academy Award-winning film Crash.

Fraser branched into television with roles in the Showtime drama The Affair (2016–2017), the FX series Trust (2018), and the Max series Doom Patrol (2019–2023).

His film career was revitalized by roles in Steven Soderbergh's No Sudden Move (2021) and Darren Aronofsky's The Whale (2022).

Fraser's starring role as an obese gay man in the latter earned him critical acclaim and numerous accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Actor, becoming the first Canadian to win this category.