Brendan Fraser & Takehiro Hira Talk Rental Family’s Toothpaste Superhero, Themes

Rental Family stars Brendan Fraser and Takehiro Hira spoke with ComingSoon about the new comedy-drama movie. Fraser and Hira spoke about the film’s themes, plus Fraser laughed about playing a toothpaste superhero in an ad. Searchlight Pictures releases the film in theaters on November 21, 2025.

“Set against modern-day Tokyo, Rental Family follows an American actor (Brendan Fraser) who struggles to find purpose until he lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese “rental family” agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. As he immerses himself in his clients’ worlds, he begins to form genuine bonds that blur the lines between performance and reality. Confronting the moral complexities of his work, he rediscovers purpose, belonging, and the quiet beauty of human connection,” says the official synopsis.

Tyler Treese: Brendan, your character really struggles with the ethics of what he’s doing as a rental actor, but he has such an impact on the people he meets. I thought that must be very relatable as an actor because fans obviously get attached to your roles, which can be quite different from who you actually are. What did you find most interesting about Phillip making these very real connections, but under a lie?

Brendan Fraser: That he learns he really needed to have this experience when he was ambivalent about it at first. So when the performative aspects of doing the job fall away and things get real, that’s when he realizes that, “Hey, this is what I was meant to do. This is what I want to do. This is what I’m good at.”

And then even further, when he invests so fully into those roles, he actually acts in capacity as the authentic thing, which is fantastic because that dilemma is really where this film lives between the make-believe of it all, and then the reality of it all, which is handled by our director Hikari with precision.

Takehiro, rental family services have been a thing in Japan since the nineties, and it’d be very easy for the film to just play it as a joke, but this is such an empathetic look at it all. What stood out most to you when you researched this industry and learned about this line of work that your character does?

Takehiro Hira: One of the lines that I say in the film was that the mental health issue is stigmatized in Japan. So people are almost afraid to go to doctors for that problem or issue. They don’t want to talk to someone more intimately than a friend.

So, that’s where we come from. That’s where we come into play. We provide services not to fix the actual problem from the root cause, but to do the patchwork on the surface, and sometimes it goes a long way. That’s what the rental family provides.

Brendan, one of my favorite moments is the toothpaste commercial. It’s so fun. You just won an Oscar and now you’re a toothpaste superhero. How is it just embracing the silliness fully for that scene?

Brendan Fraser: Silliness? I dare say! I researched Clear Bright Man extensively.

Can I just let you in on something? I don’t think Phillip Vandarploeug is necessarily a very good actor. Let’s remember that we see him on screen playing a tree next [laugh]. So that would indicate, I guess, that he’s slightly wooden as an actor. Get it?

Phillip backed into that job because it put some money in his pocket, but then he couldn’t live it down, so he tried to lean into it and keep doing it. That’s why when we find him in the world of this film, he’s not working out so well, which I love. That means he has to mix things up and try something new, which is why he goes to work in a rental family agency.

Source: Comingsoon.net