Brendan Fraser is the kind of actor who tends to wear his heart on his sleeve, and he did so again at the premiere of his new film, Rental Family, at the Toronto International Film Festival.
On Saturday night, after the audience of the Royal Alexandra Theatre roared in a standing ovation for Fraser and his director, Hikari (Beef, 37 Seconds), the star became visibly choked up talking about the themes of Rental Family.
“I was late to the meeting in Manhattan and I couldn’t find parking,” Fraser said of connecting with Hikari about the film, noting how they must’ve talked for 6-8 hours — “or so, long enough for it to start to feel a bit chilly.”
“I learned about her life, about her aspirations, her interests, her unique experience of coming to America, and what that meant about the family that we find, and it not necessarily being the one that we’re born into sometimes,” Fraser continued. “I was perplexed and mystified and invigorated in all the best ways possible for meeting Hikari. And then…”
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After a brief pause, he said, “Hey, I knew this story is unique. It’s something that we need to see on screen.” Feeling the emotion, Fraser finished, “And correct me if I’m wrong, I think we need to see this movie now more than ever these days.”
The film follows Philip (Fraser), a lonely American actor living in Tokyo who’s looking for connection. Failing to land his big break, he’s offered a job with a “rental family” agency, a service that tasks actors to take on stand-in roles in their clients’ lives for the purpose of helping them through challenges.
On any given day, Philip can be found playing the role of a journalist profiling an elderly Japanese actor to make him feel significant, a “sad American” at a fake funeral for a man who needed to feel important, or the returning absentee dad to a little girl who’s been struggling emotionally without her actual father in the picture.
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It’s through this morally complex work that Philip rediscovers his own purpose and sense of belonging. Rental Family, premiering in theaters Nov. 21, also stars Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Gorman, and Akira Emoto.
“I came to America when I was 17 for the first time, and I landed in Utah,” Hikari, who also helmed episodes of Tokyo Vice, said on stage next to Fraser. “That was my first place to learn English. I was the only Asian girl in the entire city, I felt like…. I had to learn English, and I had to learn the culture. So, for me, bringing somebody — American guy — to Tokyo, what does that look like? Because there’s a lot of things that you learn when you’re the only person in the room.”
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On casting Fraser, she said, “What’s not to love about this guy, right?”
Hikari attended a screening of The Whale, the 2022 movie that won Fraser a Best Actor Oscar. During the Q&A portion, Fraser appeared via video chat because he contracted COVID-19 at the time. “He was in town, but you couldn’t show up,” Hikari said. “But thanks to COVID, for the first time in my life, he was on this giant screen. And when he started talking, my heart just said, ‘I found my Philip.’ And that was it.”
Speaking about his director, Fraser recently told EW, “I want you to know how unique and special she is. The importance of her vision as a filmmaker and as an artist is going to find its mark, and it’s going to cause positive changes. I hope this particular film does inspire people to find a way towards accepting one another with a little bit more authenticity.”
