Brendan Fraser says The Rock was ‘a piece of tape on a stick’ in his Hollywood debut

Brendan Fraser has revealed that he never actually met Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson on the set of The Mummy Returns despite them sharing scenes together.

The Rock has had an incredibly prolific movie career, but everyone has to start somewhere, and The Mummy Returns was where Dwayne Johnson first made his Hollywood debut.

Already a megastar in the wrestling world, he'd made a handful of cameos in TV shows including Star Trek: Voyager and That '70s Show, while also playing a mugger in the very poorly known film Longshot, which never released in US cinemas and is probably a good thing for Johnson's career.

He got his first proper Hollywood gig playing the Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns and ended up getting his own spin-off movie to really kickstart his career as an action star.

However, Mummy co-star Brendan Fraser has revealed that the pair of them never actually met while on set shooting the movie, with The Rock nothing more than 'a piece of tape on a stick'.

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Appearing on The Drew Barrymore Show, Fraser was asked to name fun and obscure bits of trivia about some of his most famous movies, and when they got to The Mummy Returns he made the revelation.

They were chatting about his movies and Barrymore complained that technology had ruined the 'caper' genre of movie and said if she had to act with CGI and a tennis ball she would 'fail miserably'.

Fraser admitted that it was something he was used to, and shared the secret of never actually speaking to one of his co-stars on set because they just CGI'd him into their scenes.

He said: "I happen to be really good at it, you know why? Because in The Mummy Returns, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson was just a piece of tape on a stick."

The actor went on to reveal he did plenty more work with CGI characters who were represented in filming by a bit of something on the end of a stick so he knew where to look.

Everett Collection Inc / Alamy Stock Photo

The Rock's role as the Scorpion King does stick in the mind, though partly because it's one of the most prominent examples of bad CGI from the early 00s once he transforms into a monster at the end of the movie.

Fraser, who recently won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Actor thanks to his role in The Whale, said he would quite like to return to The Mummy franchise if they ever considered doing another one.

Meanwhile, the movie really kickstarted Dwayne Johnson's transformation from famous wrestler into one of the most bankable Hollywood stars of the modern era.

He's got enough star power to now insist on a clause in all the contracts of the movies he stars in, requiring the film to let his character not lose a fight and always give as good as he gets in terms of throwing punches.