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Brendan Fraser has flexed his language skills for his latest film.
The Academy Award winner spoke about learning to speak Japanese in a starring role in a rental family during a Q&A after the screening on Saturday, September 6th.
And Fraser, 56, admitted that he was “not a very good student,” but he added.
“So you, of course, you weren’t looking through the magic of editing, people were giving me a line because I made them sound like they were theirs,” he shared.
Fraser added that while he was filming in Japan he “really fast and it really got better” and that his Japanese castmate “taked me so much.”
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As for how he approached the challenges of communication barriers, “Fundamentals” Fraser learned as an acting student, “It doesn’t matter what you’re saying verbally – that’s the intention behind it, and we should be able to communicate with each other regardless of the language we speak.”
And while it’s not necessarily “easy,” Fraser recalled the lesson, “I think if we all try to do it, we’re going to get a little better at each other,” he said. “That’s what I took from it and I love all my fellow cast members.”
Director Hikari’s Rental Family is held in Tokyo and “tracks an American actor (Fraser) who struggles to find his purpose until he lands an unusual gig. He works for a Japanese “rental family” agency and stands in for strangers.”
“When he immerses himself in the world of his clients, he begins to form a genuine bond that blurs the line between performance and reality,” the summary adds. “When he confronts the moral complexity of his work, he reattacks the quiet beauty of purpose, belonging and human connection.”
Aside from Fraser, the rental family cast includes Takehirohiro, Mariyamamoto, Shannon Gorman and Akira Emoto. The film was written by directors Hikari and Stephen Blahut and produced by Hikari, Eddie Weissman, Julia Lebedev and Yamaguchi.
Speaking to people at the TIFF premiere of the film on Saturday, Fraser said the film rethinks the concept of family in the sense that “family is not what we were born with, it is the person we are.”
“I think this is a film that everyone needs to feel like they belong to somewhere in the world, even at the lowest,” he says. “And I know it’s not supposed to be a good movie, but it’s a really good movie. Hikari is the incredible new director of the Sheen and has the bragging rights to say, ‘Well, I knew her’. Watch in the next few years.”
Regarding what she hopes to take the audience away from the rental family, the director herself told people, “I want people to just look at the people around you. If you feel lonely, just start there and start there, so that no one is there for you.”
“It doesn’t matter if you have any connections with your family or not. If you have friends there, that’s important, right?” adds Hikari. “And then, if you get lost, listen to your gut. That’s what I love and hopefully the film will tell you.”
The rental family will be in the theater on November 21st. The 2025 Toronto International Film Festival will be held from September 4th to 14th.
