American-Canadian actor Brendan Fraser has said his latest film Rental Family “ticks all the boxes” of the thing he looks for in a role.
The 56-year-old plays Phillip Vanderploeg, an American actor living in Japan in the film, which follows the character as he starts working for a Japanese rental family service to play stand-in roles in other people’s lives.
Speaking at a screening of the movie at the BFI London Film Festival, Fraser told the PA news agency: “It ticks all the boxes of everything I’m looking for.
“This is a Japanese film, Japanese crew, Japanese actors, I’m the odd man out, and so it was a dream opportunity to go and work in Tokyo for four months.
“I’m excited for the introduction of Shannon Gorman (who plays Mia Kawasaki, a young girl looking for a father figure) in this performance, I mean, if lightning strikes and you can put it in a bottle, that’s this kid.”
Directed by Hikari, Rental Family will be released in the UK in January 2026, and also stars Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto and Akira Emoto.
Speaking about his character, Fraser added: “He’s the proverbial babe in the woods, foreigner in a foreign land, he’s somehow, I don’t know if he’s on the run, but he certainly has left western society behind and adopted a new home in Japan for all the reasons that worked for him.
“But the one thing he doesn’t have is connection, and he feels lonely, and then learns that, well, you’re not alone in feeling lonely, because there’s a demographic group, statistically in the elderly population, who have children who don’t speak to them anymore, or they won’t.
“And they are bereft, and it does them so good to sit down with someone once a week, and maybe just brush their hair and listen to their worries, even if it’s not really your daughter.
“These are business models that actually work in Los Angeles, in Tokyo, it is unique, and I think it serves a purpose to take the prickly edges off of life.”
