Let’s do the shameless bit first. Nobody called Brendan can visit Ireland without being asked if this counts as the home country. Brendan Fraser, born in the great state of Indiana, knows it’s coming.
“Oh, absolutely. My great-grandad Patrick Devine’s family escaped the Great Famine,” he says. “He came across the Atlantic in a rusty bucket in the 1830s – he was 11 years old – by himself. They settled in Pennsylvania. The family later became coal miners. His son became a candy wholesaler. He was a candy man. Ha ha!”
Fraser, meeting me for tea in the Merrion Hotel in Dublin, speaks incredibly quietly, barely above a murmur. He is enormously nice, but one senses a…