See the cast of 1999’s ‘The Mummy’, then and now

Brendan Fraser (Rick O’Connell)

Brendan Fraser played the dashing hero Rick O’Connell, a treasure hunter and former Captain of the French Foreign Legion.

“We didn’t know whether we were making a horror movie, we didn’t know if this was an action picture, we didn’t know if it was a romance picture,” he told EW in 2019. “All of the above? None of the above? We didn’t know. We. Did. Not. Know.”

The actor rose to prominence in the early ’90s, standing out in Encino Man (1992), School Ties (1992), and Airheads (1994) before swinging into theaters as George of the Jungle (1997) and finding critical acclaim in Gods and Monsters (1998).

Fraser was bedeviled by Elizabeth Hurley’s Beelzebub in Bedazzled (2000), earned career-best reviews for the Vietnam drama The Quiet American (2002), and landed a role in the Best Picture-winning Crash (2004). Injuries from his years of stunt work required surgeries that curbed his action star status, but he found regular TV work, including Trust (2018) and Doom Patrol (2019–2023). 

His road back to big-screen glory began in Steven Soderbergh’s heist movie No Sudden Move (2021) and led to his Oscar-winning turn in The Whale (2022) and a small, memorably bombastic role in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).

Fraser was married to actress Afton Smith, with whom he shares three sons, from 1998 to 2009. He has been in a relationship with makeup artist Jeanne Moore since 2022.

Rachel Weisz (Evelyn Carnahan)

Rachel Weisz played bookworm turned mummy slayer Evelyn Carnahan.

The English actress impressed for years on stage and across the arthouse circuit before grabbing the attention of Imhotep — and mainstream audiences — in The Mummy.

“It was the ’90s and a lot of the women’s parts were not very interesting,” she told Newsweek. “[Evie] was just a very unusual female character. She was a librarian, and she was in the middle of this action movie. She was funny and kind of mischievous and honest.”

That role launched one of the most celebrated screen careers in recent history. Weisz showed off her range in everything from the rom-com About a Boy (2002) to the dark graphic novel adaptation Constantine (2005) before winning an Oscar for The Constant Gardener (2005).

After starring in The Fountain (2006) — her then-fiancee Darren Aronofsky’s interlocking triptych about conquering death — she stole every scene in Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom (2008), and continued cycling between big-budget dramas, such as The Lovely Bones (2009), and more intimate ones like The Deep Blue Sea (2011).

The international star landed on Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos’ radar for his absurdist comedy The Lobster (2015); the two reunited for The Favourite (2018), where her acerbic performance landed her another Oscar nod.

No stranger to blockbusters with The Bourne Legacy (2012) and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) on her résumé, Weisz joined the MCU for a villainous role in Black Widow (2021). Most recently, she stepped into Jeremy Irons’ scrubs as identical twin gynecologists in the gender-swapped miniseries remake of Dead Ringers (2023).

She and Aronofsky were engaged for several years and share a son, Henry. In 2011, she married Daniel Craig, and in 2018 the couple welcomed a daughter. In 2013, the two actors shared the stage in Betrayal, Weisz’s Broadway debut.

John Hannah (Jonathan Carnahan)

Scottish actor John Hannah was Evelyn’s troublemaking brother Jonathan.

Before unraveling the Mummy, he stole the hearts of audiences with his breakout performance as Matthew in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), for which he earned a BAFTA nomination, and as Gwyneth Paltrow’s love interest in Sliding Doors (1998).

“I struggled a bit doing The Mummy at first,” he told EW in 2019. “I was like, ‘I don’t understand what I’m doing here!’ Brendan’s the hero, and Kevin J. was doing the comedy stuff. I’m like, ‘Steve, what’s my function?’ He said, ‘Just mess around in the background, and if it’s funny, we’ll cover it.’”

Hannah starred alongside Denzel Washington in the biopic The Hurricane (1999) before reprising Jonathan in The Mummy Returns (2001). In the years since, he’s found a consistent home on the small screen, playing key roles in the Spartacus franchise, Damages (2012), and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2016–2017). He recently guest starred on HBO’s hit The Last of Us (2023).

Hannah wed his Sliding Doors costar Joanna Roth in 1996. They have two children.

Arnold Vosloo (Imhotep)

Arnold Vosloo was Imhotep, the cursed mummy who returns from the tomb in search of his lost love.

“They go, ‘All right, here’s your wardrobe.’ It’s, like, a G-string. I liked my beers; I had a bit of a paunch — still do,” he told EW in 2019. “Steve told me afterwards that the wardrobe master said, ‘We’ve got a problem. We’ve got a fat Mummy!’ So in Morocco I was just running and walking and eating whatever it is they make you eat to lose weight.”

Before playing the classic villain, Vosloo was a celebrated film, television, and theater actor in his native South Africa. He made his stateside debut in the cult sword-and-sorcery adventure Gor (1987) and hunted Jean-Claude Van Damme in John Woo’s Hard Target (1993).

After his defeat in The Mummy movies, he menaced Agent Cody Banks (2003), costarred with Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond (2006), and shored up his bad-guy bonafides as Cobra agent Zartan in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) and G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013). His TV work has included 24 (2005), Bosch (2017), and Jack Ryan (2019).

Vosloo was married to actress Nancy Mulford from 1988 to 1991. He wed marketing director Silvia Ahi in 1998.

Kevin J. O’Connor (Beni Gabor)

Kevin J. O’Connor was the disloyal thief Beni Gabor, whose greed gets the best of him.

As he told EW in 2019, making the film was its own adventure: “You’d see one little black cloud and you’d think, ‘What is this?’ This little black cloud would turn into a sandstorm that was blinding and threw the camera equipment around. It was insane… I chose to wear open-toed sandals for my character. After my first night, I realized how wrong I was. I would look down and see something moving in the sand.”

O’Connor was already a well-established character actor, with Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Steel Magnolias (1989), Amistad (1997), and Tanner ’88 (1988) under his belt. After getting eaten alive by scarabs in The Mummy, he served as the diabolical lab assistant Igor in Sommers’ Van Helsing (2004), then faced a different kind of monster in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (2007). He joined Patrick Swayze for his final performance in the series The Beast (2009) and reunited with Anderson for The Master (2012).

The Windy City native was a recurring player on Chicago P.D. (2014–2015) as well as the Stephen King miniseries 11.22.63 (2016). In recent years, he has popped up in Widows (2018), Catch-22 (2019), and the Kirsten Dunst-led series On Becoming a God in Central Florida (2019).

Jonathan Hyde (Dr. Allen Chamberlain)

Veteran screen presence Jonathan Hyde brought the film’s resident Egyptologist, Dr. Allen Chamberlain, to life.

The Australian character actor was best known to Americans as the trustworthy butler in Richie Rich (1994), in dual roles in Jumanji (1995), and as the historically infamous J. Bruce Ismay in Titanic (1997).

Modern audiences may recognize him from Guillermo del Toro’s vampire series The Strain (2014–2017); he reunited with the genre maestro for the Gothic chiller Crimson Peak (2015). Recently Hyde appeared, ironically enough, in Dr. Jekyll (2023) with Eddie Izzard, and guest starred as the Duke of Norfolk on The Crown (2023).

 Hyde wed opera singer Isobel Buchanan in 1980 and they have two children. Their daughter, Georgia King, is also an actor.

Oded Fehr (Ardeth Bay)

Oded Fehr was Ardeth Bay, leader of the sacred guards tasked with protecting the City of the Dead.

“We had no idea when we shot the first Mummy that it’s going to be what it ended up being… I heard Rachel going, ‘This is the end of my career,’” he said on Popverse’s Mummy cast reunion panel. “I was just happy to be there, you know… for me it was my first job.” 

After The Mummy Returns, he faced off with the undead again in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) and played the villain Zankou on Charmed (2004–2005). Fehr co-headlined Showtime’s Sleeper Cell (2005–2006) and landed roles in NCIS (2013), Once Upon a Time (2016–2017), 24: Legacy (2017), The Blacklist (2015–2019), and Star Trek: Discovery (2020–2024). The Israeli actor will return to the Final Frontier for the spin-off Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

Fehr and Rhonda Tollefson have been married since 2000 and have three children.

Erick Avari (Dr. Terence Bey)

Erick Avari played Dr. Terence Bey, curator of the Cairo Museum of Antiquities.

A two-decade veteran of stage and screen, he already had an extensive résumé, including the Seinfeld (1989) pilot and supporting turns in Stargate (1994), Independence Day (1996), and Fraser’s Encino Man.

The actor mentioned on a podcast in 2015 that his role changed at the last minute: “I was originally cast in the role Jonathan Hyde played and Omar Sharif was set to play the curator, but two weeks before the shoot, they called to say Omar had emergency hip surgery and so they were bumping me up to the role of the curator.”

Avari played a human in Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes (2001) and the billionaire businessman father of Jennifer Garner’s Elektra in Daredevil (2003). He subsequently settled in on the small screen, booking parts in Heroes (2006), Days of Our Lives (2009), and The Brink (2017). The actor has remained mostly retired since the first season of faith-based drama The Chosen (2019).

Avari and his wife, Margaret Walker, have been married since 1980.

Bernard Fox (Captain Winston Havelock)

Bernard Fox portrayed the overzealous fighter pilot Captain Winston Havelock.

The Welsh actor became a sitcom stalwart in the ’60s, appearing on everything from The Andy Griffith Show (1963–1965) to Hogan’s Heroes (1965–1970). While he remains most noteworthy for his sitcom work, he also holds a unique big-screen distinction: He appeared in two films based on the sinking of the Titanic, both A Night to Remember (1958) and the ship’s eponymous 1997 blockbuster.

The Mummy was one of his last acting roles, but he went out with yet another bit of déjà vu, reprising his recurring character from Bewitched (1966–1972) on the supernatural soap opera Passions (1999–2000).

Fox died of heart failure in 2016 at age 89. He and his wife, Jacqueline, were married for over 50 years and had two children.

Patricia Velásquez (Anck-su-namun)

Patricia Velásquez was Imhotep’s gold-painted lover, the Pharaoh’s bride-to-be Anck-su-namun.

“It took almost 10 hours to get that makeup on,” she said in 2024. “I have four people drawing on my body, and then they had a special chair so I could sit and the paint would not smear… I had anywhere between two to four hours of retouching every day. It was tough.”

After an expanded role in The Mummy Returns, Velásquez showed off her comedic chops as Marta on Arrested Development (2003–2004) and guested on Rescue Me (2004) and The L Word (2008). The Venezuelan actress recently appeared in the horror films The Curse of La Llorona (2019) and Malignant (2021). 

Off-screen, she has been honored for her philanthropy, having created the Wayuu Taya Foundation to assist the indigenous Wayuu people of Venezuela and Colombia. The United Nations appointed her the UNESCO Artist for Peace in 2003.

Velásquez has a daughter, Maya, and is in a relationship with businesswoman Alison Lawton.