Actor and all around stand-up guy, Brendan Fraser, is undergoing a career renaissance
Case in point-: Fraser left the internet chuckling after apologizing to the city of San Francisco for a stunt gone—even though it happened a full quarter-century ago. It's never too late to make amends!
The moment happened while talking to SFGate during Fraser's red carpet walk before a screening of his new film The Whale at the Mill Valley Film Festival in nearby Marin County, across the San Francisco Bay.
Fraser remembered an incident while filming George of the Jungle, one of his biggest roles in the 90s, that ruined lots of Bay Area residents' day back in 1997.
In the film, Fraser had a stunt in which his character was dangling from the top of the Bay Bridge, which connects San Francisco to Oakland and the miles and miles of suburbs surrounding it.
But it seems nobody told the people of the Bay Area this was happening, and so you can probably imagine what ensued. Fraser (who misremembered the incident as having happened on the Golden Gate Bridge) told SFGate:
"I have almost an apology to make."
"When we were doing 'George of the Jungle,' George goes to rescue a parachutist tangled in the Golden Gate Bridge. That means Disney put a mannequin hanging by a parachute from the uprights."
"It brought traffic to a standstill on either side of the bridge."
Being that the Bay Bridge is the only drivable route between the Bay's two biggest cities, you can imagine the stir this caused. Fraser described watching the furor unfold on the news from his trailer that day.
"I had the TV on, and 'Oprah' got interrupted because there was a special news report with helicopters saying a parachute is dangling on the bridge."
"And I'm going — wait a minute, I'm looking at the helicopters and TV — somebody didn't pull a permit, somebody's going to get in trouble with the mayor's office. So I can only apologize for that."
Fraser told the story again later in the night while accepting an award, and the crowd was delighted.
On Twitter, Fraser's anecdote only added to the tide of goodwill people have been feeling for the actor since The Whale began its film festival tour.
Now if we can just get the people of the Bay Area to forgive him for mixing up the Bay and Golden Gate bridges, he'll be all set.
