Brendan Fraser stripped down the scene.
The “Whale” actor has revealed that both he and Matt Damon were buck naked while filming an infamous shower scene in their 1992 movie “School Ties.”
“I appreciated that this isn’t really for ‘wow’ or a scintillating factor of going, ‘Hey, look at that — naked people,’” Fraser, 54, said Tuesday while appearing on “The Howard Stern Show.”
In the film, Fraser plays 17-year-old David Greene, who attends the fictional St. Matthew’s Academy on a football scholarship. It’s there that he meets fellow player Charlie Dillon, played by Damon. Greene hides his Jewish lineage due to widespread anti-Semitism at the school, but Greene’s secret is revealed by Dillon out of jealousy — sparking the butt-baring shower brouhaha.
Fraser also admitted that he was initially scared to film the scene since “School Ties” was his first big role.
“When you’re an actor, and you’re starting off, you’re ambitious and game for pretty much anything,” recounted Fraser. “They say, ‘Jump,’ you say, ‘How high?’”
According to Fraser, one of his co-stars helped him get comfortable.
“Chris O’Donnell — he kicked out the set photographer, who was hiding in one of the bathroom stalls,” joked Fraser. “‘Yeah, Peter, you can go, thank you. You really don’t need to be there, do you?’”
Fraser further explained the rationale behind the scene.
“The point of it was that when Damon’s character says what he says about David, he just reveals who he is. His anti-Semitism and his prejudice is stripped down naked, and it’s ugly,” said Fraser. “And the door is locked and they fight over it like shaved apes that need to be pulled apart because they’ve run out of things to say to one another, and it just turns into an ugly knuckle-dusting fit.”
According to the “Mummy” star, Damon’s natural star power helped him to get the role in the first place.
“I just remember thinking, ‘He’s already got the job, and this is my shot here. Okay, don’t mess this up; bring things down a size,’” Fraser recalled. “I was used to being on stage at that point in my life and playing to the back row, and I knew that I needed to match pitch with Matt, so I felt like I was his wingman or something, and I think that’s why I got hired.”
Fraser’s tale comes as the actor has seen a resurgence in popularity for his work in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale” which landed him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
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