According to his own words, US actor Brendan Fraser (54) almost suffocated while filming the action film "The Mummy". Speaking on The Kelly Clarkson Show, he recalled the incident in which he was "accidentally strangled": "I was standing on my tiptoes with the rope around my neck. It's very limited in movement."

The director then asked him to act the suffocation as authentically as possible. "The guy holding the rope pulled it a little higher and I was stuck on my tiptoes - I had nowhere to go but down. Then all I know is my elbow was against my ear, I was lying on my side and had gravel between his teeth."

In the 1999 film, Fraser played adventurer and ex-soldier Rick O'Connell. In a sequel, he again took on the leading role in 2001, the third and for the time being last part, "The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor", was released in cinemas in 2008. However, Fraser recently revealed that he would not be averse to another sequel.

The fact that the Hollywood star gives everything for his roles also becomes clear in the tragic comedy "The Whale". In the drama he can currently be seen as a very overweight man who is looking for contact with his daughter again. For the character, Fraser spent up to six hours a day in the makeup and sometimes wore prosthetics weighing 50 to 300 pounds. "If there's no risk, why bother?" he told Vanity Fair magazine.