Brendan Fraser Reveals the New Role That Helped Him Beat Insecurity
Brendan Fraser says Hikari’s comedy-drama Rental Family helped quiet his insecurities, with the Oscar winner following The Whale to play Phillip Vandarpleog, an American actor who takes a gig with a Japanese rental service.
Brendan Fraser has a new movie, and it sounds like the job doubled as a bit of therapy. At a London screening for the comedy-drama 'Rental Family,' he talked about how making it actually helped him deal with some stuff. The premise is odd in a good way, and the way it came together is even more surprising.
What the movie is
Fraser plays Phillip Vandarpleog, an American actor living in Tokyo who takes gigs with a Japanese rental family service. Basically, he gets hired to play different roles for strangers who need a stand-in: a husband, a brother, a dad. As he bounces from client to client, the line between acting and real connection starts to blur. It is a comedy-drama, but the hook here is pretty grounded and a little melancholy.
Fraser on why it mattered to him
Speaking during a Q&A in London, Fraser, 56, said the movie hit him on a personal level and helped quiet a familiar voice in his head.
"I struggle with insecurity, and to make this film, it reminded me that I'm good enough, and I always was all along. Why am I giving myself such a hard time? It's there."
He also shouted out his co-star Shannon Gorman, who makes her feature debut here. (On screen, she is credited as Shannon Mahina Gorman.)
How this story came about
Director Hikari co-wrote the script with Stephen Blahut, and the idea came from a very 2020s moment: Blahut was job-hunting in Tokyo during the pandemic and stumbled on a listing for the rental family gig. Hikari, who is Japanese, admitted she had never heard of that industry before, which made the whole thing even stranger and more intriguing. The team used that setup to poke at modern isolation and the way distance became normal after COVID.
- Cast: Brendan Fraser as Phillip Vandarpleog; Takehiro Hira as Shinji; Mari Yamamoto as Aiko; Shannon Mahina Gorman as Mia Kawasaki; Akira Emoto as Kikuo Hasegawa
- Directed by Hikari; written by Hikari and Stephen Blahut
- Premiered at TIFF on September 6, 2025
- US theatrical release: November 21, 2025
For a movie about a guy literally paid to play pretend, 'Rental Family' sounds surprisingly sincere. And the fact that it was sparked by a real job posting during peak pandemic weirdness gives it that extra wrinkle that makes you go, oh, this might actually have something to say.