If you’re a parent, or ever been on a plane, you will be acutely aware of the crying-baby-on-the-plane phenomena. And however annoyed you might be by the crying baby, it’s worse to be the parent who is dying inside, knowing that they’re hated by everyone at that extremely trying time. It’s worse than any horror movie.
Comedian and actor Nick Kroll was recently in the rarefied air of the Venice Film Festival, where he was a hanger-on to the best/worst press tour of all time – for Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling. But that wasn’t the only drama that Kroll was a part of, he also managed to piss off the nicest man in Hollywood, who is currently experiencing a sensational comeback.
Speaking to Seth Myers, Kroll says that it all began with his son crying for the entire ‘red-eye’ flight from New York to Venice. “Your worst nightmare is that you fly with a child and your child is going to be loud and unpleasant on a plane…and he starts screaming for almost the entire red-eye. He will not fall asleep.”
Kroll continues; “We land in Venice and this guy gets off the plane, he’s wearing a seersucker suit and a Panama hat – like a proper Italian Mafia boss. He is not happy about [my kid crying for the entire flight]. I get to baggage claim, I realise it’s not a Mafia boss – it’s Brendan Fraser. And he’s so pissed.”
“I see Natasha Lyonne at the festival and she asked how my flight was. I said ‘my kid cried a bunch’ and she was like ‘that was your kid on the plane?! We find out that Brendan Fraser has been talking about how much my son was crying on the plane, so he couldn’t get a good night’s sleep. I felt terrible, it’s your worst nightmare.”
“The next night I go to the premiere of The Whale with my wife. Brendan Fraser is amazing in the film. This is his big comeback. The movie finishes, he gets an eight-minute standing ovation. He’s crying. You can feel him being like ‘I’m back, baby. It’s the Oscars. Here we come.’ He then turns around and me and my wife are standing directly behind him. He looks at us and then I pull up my baby and he [the baby] starts crying. My wife took a picture of him just at the moment he looked at us and if you look closely, you can see Brendan Fraser realizing that we have ruined his night.”
It feels good to know that even the nicest man in Hollywood, who everyone is rooting for, can have a baby for a nemesis. Check out our guide to the best drama movies.