Brendan Fraser on shooting new series ‘Texas Rising’ and taking home a horse

Brendan Fraser doesn’t know whether to call “Texas Rising” a movie, an episodic saga, a series or an opus.

“It’s a new format for me,” says Fraser.

“Texas Rising” is a 10-hour, five-part historical miniseries depicting the Texas Revolution and the rise of the Texas Rangers. It premieres on Global and History May 25 at 9 p.m. ET.

This is a story that begins at the Alamo, a Texas landmark far removed from the 46-year-old actor’s own background. Fraser was born in Indiana to Canadian parents and spent his formative years in Ottawa and Toronto, where he attended Toronto’s Upper Canada College.

The Canadian-American actor is used to working on big-budget, special effects-laden feature film epics such as “The Mummy” and its sequels. Speaking from his home near New York, he says he found “Texas Rising” to be refreshingly free of computer-generated effects.

“Believe me, there was not a lot of huge sheets of green cloth anywhere,” Fraser says of the green-screen process, in which backgrounds or even armies are digitally added later.

Instead, “Texas Rising” features plenty of real actors on horseback.

“It was a lot of riding,” he says. “As we all used to joke, this is a movie about guys in hats on horses.”

The miniseries co-stars Bill Paxton (as General Sam Houston), Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Ray Liotta, Olivier Martinez and Cynthia Addai-Robinson. Crispin Glover, Rob Morrow and Kris Kristofferson (as U.S. president Andrew Jackson) also have roles. It was shot in Durango, Mexico, sometimes referred to as “the land of the cinema.” Over 120 films have been shot there, including such John Wayne oaters as “The Sons of Katie Elder” and “The War Wagon.”

Fraser spent three-and-a-half months on the production and describes the landscape as “the most achingly, breathtakingly beautiful terrain.” It was not, however, without its challenges, being “infested with scorpions and scorching-ly hot.” Days were spent getting in and out of “prison quality vans and checking your ego at the door.”

Fraser did his share of research on the Texas Revolution, which took place in 1835-36. Firearms back then could blow up in somebody’s face, hence the term, “flash-in-the-pan.”

There are graphic scenes of violence in the miniseries. As Fraser says, “you don’t have to re-load a knife, so it was a bloody, bloody time.”

Fraser plays Billy Anderson, a composite character who joins the Texas Rangers. Kidnapped as a boy, he was raised by the Kiowa tribe. Torn between two cultures, he wears his long hair in braids and rides like a Comanche. His knowledge of native languages is a big asset to General Houston.

“Billy is there to bridge the divide between the two worlds,” says Fraser. “He’s the white guy with the braids who has language skills, speaks like the locals and can defuse a situation through diplomacy.”

Fraser says he bonded with the entire cast but especially with his horse.

“He was my acting partner,” says Fraser, who brought the horse home with him.

“It wasn’t headed to the glue factory or anything horrible,” says Fraser, “but I thought, I want to do well by him too.”

Fraser has three boys, the oldest with special needs. It was a special moment when he put his eldest son on that horse for the first time.

“He sang as a little kid when he was very small,” says Fraser. “I hadn’t heard him do that in a very long time.”

The horse, named Pecas, “is part of our family life now, a new member of our family.”

— Bill Brioux is a TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.