Intro for May 8, 2026

Dear Gossips,

One of the most heart-warming elements of pop culture over the last few years is all the comebacks we’ve gotten to see, including Ke Huy Quan and Brendan Fraser, both of whom capped off their returns to Hollywood with Oscar wins. Brendan Fraser has been keeping busy since he won Best Actor for The Whale (I like to pretend he won for Airheads, not joking), and he is back outside promoting his new film, World War II drama Pressure, in which he plays Dwight D. Eisenhower on the cusp of D-Day. We are so far down the WWII rabbit hole we’re making movies about the WEATHERMAN now. Cool.

But this does mean Fraser is doing interviews and talking about other work he’s got on the hook, including a fourth Mummy movie, which will reunite him with Rachel Weisz, after she sat out the third film, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (Maria Bello took over the role of Evie O’Connell). The fourth film is set for a 2028 release date, which means filming next year, which means Fraser is prepping now. He was on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon talking about returning to his iconic role as adventurer Rick O’Connell, getting his “fifty-seven-year-old gear in shape”. I apologize for the Jimmy Fallon jump scare, but here is Fraser talking about his return to The Mummy.

 

The Mummy (1999) is one of my favorite films, imminently rewatchable, notable for how everyone in the main cast is a total f-cking smokeshow—the film has its own wing in the Bisexual Awakening Museum—and I am really happy to see Fraser enjoying renewed success in his middle age. But we all remember that part of the reason he went away in the first place is because he f-cked up his back making one of the Mummy sequels, right?

I blame Tom Cruise for the expectation that every middle-aged actor will get in shape for an action role. Maybe even a little bit Keanu Reeves shares in this, making John Wick movies throughout his fifties (though you can see how the films’ style adjusted over the years to account for Keanu doing less of his own action work). When we talk about our youth-obsessed culture, we talk a lot about skin care and plastic surgery and diet culture but not letting movie stars age is a big part of it, too.

I love and adore The Mummy, but I don’t think I need Brendan Fraser to get his “gear in shape” for a cash-grab sequel. Maybe fifty-something dad bod Rick O’Connell would be fine? Fraser is, after all, still a very handsome man, with the added benefit of looking like he gives great hugs. Maybe it’s because I’m forty-something now and not a horny teenager that my tastes have changed, but I don’t need Brendan Fraser, who famously suffered serious back injuries and pain because of pushing too hard through “doing his own stunts” culture, to go back to that now.

We talk a lot about “Instagram face” and how all the young stars all look the same because they’re getting the same tweakments, but the other side of that coin is middle-aged stars performing the same roles they did in their twenties and thirties, and we’re not supposed to notice the passage of time? (This will be a head trip in Avengers: Doomsday, I just know it.) I enjoy Tom Cruise movies, but among the many fictions of his public persona is the one that he hasn’t aged in at least the last twenty years. And now we’re shoving human teddy bear Brendan Fraser into the same box. Am I concern trolling? Am I being ageist? Or am I just missing a piece of cinema that we used to have, which is just letting stars age? Where are the middle-aged heartthrobs?

Live long and gossip,

Sarah