Brendan 'crazy' over new role

NEW YORK (AP) — Brendan Fraser (photo) drew up one of the strangest to-do lists before making his Broadway debut.

First, he wanted to go to Oslo, Norway. There he hoped to eat pork and gravy, walk by a lake, visit a mental institution, talk to social workers, grab a beer with some car mechanics, hang out at a poetry reading, munch on a hot dog, dial up a phone sex line and buy some comic books and porno.

“Oh yeah,” he says. “I also wanted to learn how to swear in Norwegian.”

All that was to get into character before hitting the stage in the New York premiere of Elling, a sort of Odd Couple set in modern-day Norway with two recently released mental patients.

That was the plan at least, but Fraser ran out of time at the end of the summer and never got a chance to get to Norway. He relied on notes from his co-star Dennis O’Hare, YouTube videos, maps of Oslo and, oh yeah, the script.

“Everything you know as far as preparation, whether you’re doing Shakespeare or a contemporary piece, should all be right here,” he says, pointing to Simon Bent’s script. “And if it’s not, then there’s a clue about where to find it if you’re paying attention.” 

Fraser may be better known for his comedic turns in Dudley Do-Right and Bedazzled, or his action movies such as the cadaver-bashing The Mummy franchise, or his more serious film roles like Gods and Monsters and Crash, but he has also ventured onto the stage.

He played Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in London in 2001 and starred in John Patrick Shanley’s Four Dogs and a Bone in 1995 at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. He looks tired but jazzed as he puts the finishing touches on Elling.