Influencer Profiles · Independent Creators
The Man Filming 10,000 Human Dreams — One Cold Email at a Time
Fraser Grut started with a bar bet in Auckland. Nine years later he's filmed 2,300+ dreams — Mila Kunis, Bear Grylls, Tony Hawk, Elmo — and he won't stop until he has 10,000. He calls it his Everest. He means it literally.
Jay Pernell · Dreams League · June 2026
2,360+Dreams Filmed — Goal: 10,000
500+Celebrities — Cold Emailed, Most of Them
2044Projected Finish — Fraser Will Be 50
It started as a bet at Deco Eatery in Titirangi, Auckland, on December 8, 2016. Fraser Grut was 22 years old, broke, and about to embark on a project that would consume the next three decades of his life. He bet his mate Logan he'd film 10,000 people's dreams. Not 100. Not 1,000. Ten thousand. Over a lifetime. One question — "What's your dream?" — asked of every person on earth who will say yes.
Nine years in, Fraser has 2,360 down. World leaders. Pakistani refugees. Houseless people in San Francisco. Oscar winners. A real-life astronaut. A Satanic priest. Robert Irwin. Mila Kunis. Ashton Kutcher. Bear Grylls. Tony Hawk. T-Pain. Olivia Dean. Novak Djokovic. Justin Bieber. Elmo. The most eclectic guest list in the history of documentary filmmaking — built almost entirely by cold email and the audacity to keep asking after every no.
Rock Bottom and the Wiggles
Before any of the celebrity interviews, before the Amazon deal, before the project took on the scale it has now, Fraser hit a wall. At 27 he was broke and going through a divorce from the person he'd been with since he was 13. He'd spent his entire young life chasing an Oscar — had wanted to be a filmmaker since age 7, made a feature film at 19, and by 27 had nothing to show for it commercially. He was done.
Then the Wiggles called. They needed someone to film a music video with Richie McCaw. Fraser took the job. And standing backstage, he and a bandmate asked: has anyone ever made a Wiggles documentary? They googled it. Nobody had. Fraser emailed Anthony, the Blue Wiggle. On Fraser's birthday, Anthony replied: many people have tried, but if you do it, we'll make it happen. Amazon bought the documentary a year later. The filmmaker's dream that Fraser had all but buried came back to life — precisely because he had stopped chasing it.
"This is my Everest. I love the idea that I'm gonna grow with this project. You're going to see my kids grow up with it. You're going to see technology change. This is my mission in life."
— Fraser Grut, RNZ Interview
The Guest List No PR Firm Built
Over 500 of Fraser's 2,360+ subjects have been public figures. None of them came through a publicist relationship. Fraser spends four to five hours a day guessing celebrity email addresses and firing off cold messages. Most don't reply. Many say no. He still gets rejected every single day by multiple people. The ones who say yes become part of something they didn't expect — a project that's less about them and more about the question itself.
Robert & Terri Irwin Australia Zoo — Fraser's Favourite Dream of All Time Took years and multiple rejections to land. Fraser flew from New Zealand specifically for it. Spent the morning with them at Australia Zoo. Still calls it the best dream he's ever captured.
Mila Kunis & Ashton Kutcher Hollywood — A Couple, One Question Two of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood, filmed separately, answering the same question that a broke New Zealand kid asks everyone — from billionaires to refugees.
Elmo — Sesame Street The Most Famous Muppet on Earth Fraser's subject list includes world leaders, refugees, astronauts, billionaires — and a Muppet. The range is the whole point of the project.
6 Prime Ministers Including Jacinda Ardern — Dream #258 Ardern's inclusion on Day 258 was the moment Fraser realized 1,000 dreams wasn't enough. He immediately upgraded the mission to 10,000. No turning back after that.
What 2,360 Dreams Actually Teaches You
The Mission — Progress to 10,000
Dreams Filmed
2,360 / 10,000
Celebrities Included
500+
Years Remaining (est.)
~18 Years
The question sounds simple. In practice, it's an x-ray. Ask someone what their dream is and you find out what they believe about themselves — whether they think they deserve to want something, whether they've given up, whether they're performing the answer or telling the truth. Fraser has asked it more than 2,360 times. He says he still gets moved by the answers. He says he wants to quit about 40 percent of the time. He does it anyway.
The insight that gets buried under the celebrity guest list is this: the small dreams matter as much as the famous ones. A toddler's dream. A refugee's dream. A grandparent's dream. The project is not about access to famous people — it's about what every human being carries inside them and almost never says out loud. Fraser's camera creates the space for it. That's the product. That's what 27 years of work looks like.
"Small dreams are just as important. Impacting one person is just as important as impacting a million people. Imagine if this project helped a young kid become the next Martin Luther King."
— Fraser Grut, Baptist New Zealand
He's at 2,360. He needs 10,000. He'll be 50 when he finishes. That's not a content strategy. That's a life. And the reason it works — the reason Bear Grylls and Elmo and six Prime Ministers and a Satanic priest all said yes to one question from a Kiwi kid with a camera — is that the mission is real. Fraser Grut is not making content. He's building a record of what humanity dares to want.
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