Carrey/AK article
Kevin Hood
Carrey Safely Returns From Kaufman's Strange World (Hollywood)
By Amy Wallace
© 1999, Los Angeles Times
HOLLYWOOD - Jim Carrey loves not being Jim Carrey.
During the making of his new film, "Man on the Moon," the 37-year-old
chameleon
completely disappeared into the perplexing character of Andy Kaufman, the
comedian and performance artist whose humor was rooted largely in not being
funny. On the set, Carrey was Kaufman - except on the days he was Kaufman's
alter ego, a brash, egotistical lounge singer named Tony Clifton. Carrey
drove a
convertible when he was Tony, a Cordova when he was Andy, and director Milos
Forman and everyone else addressed him accordingly. Carrey himself was
nowhere
to be found.
"I really can say that I never worked with Jim Carrey," Forman said. "I
worked
with Andy, Tony, (and Kaufman's other characters) Latka, Elvis and Foreign
Man."
"The first couple of weeks, Milos didn't know what to think," Carrey
recalled
during a recent interview. "The first time he met Tony he got screamed at.
He'd
call me at home on the weekends and say, 'Jim, I am intimidated by Tony. I
don't
know how to talk to him.' I would say, 'Should we fire him?' It was weird."
Perched on a chair in the Brentwood offices of his production company, Pit
Bull
Productions, Carrey smiled mischievously, relishing talking about himself in
the
third person. It was so liberating being Kaufman, Carrey said, that when he
needed to engage in conversations about his next film ("Dr. Seuss' How the
Grinch Stole Christmas") midway through the 85-day "Man on the Moon" shoot,
he
let Andy speak for him.
"Audrey Geisel (Seuss' widow) came down to the set of 'Man on the Moon,' and
Andy did his impression of Jim doing an impression of the Grinch. That's how
I
got the part," Carrey said. "And one day, when I couldn't be there, Andy
called
(director) Ron Howard and had a conference with him, going through my notes
on
the Grinch as best he could. Andy is very cool."
Confused already? Pace yourself, because Carrey's connection to the late
Kaufman
- both in the Universal movie, which opens Dec. 22, and in life - is nothing
if
not surreal. The fact that both men were born on the same date (Jan. 17) is
only
the beginning. Among the things they have in common: a brilliant talent for
mimicry, developed first in comedy clubs and then on television (Kaufman on
"Taxi," Carrey on "In Living Color"); an offstage persona that can be shy
and
unsettlingly childlike; an earnest reliance on spirituality to get through
the
day (Kaufman meditated constantly; Carrey prays "all the time"); and one
pair of
bongo drums (Carrey owns a pair that were Kaufman's).
Carrey is, of course, a far bigger star than Kaufman ever was. Since 1994 -
when
"Ace Ventura: Pet Detective," "The Mask" and "Dumb & Dumber" were released
to
huge public acclaim - he has been one of America's best-loved big-screen
comic
talents. He is also among the best-paid: In 1996, he was the first actor to
break the $20-million barrier, for the edgy (some would say mean-spirited)
comedy "The Cable Guy." Since then, he has shunned sequels and made some
interesting choices: Peter Weir's "The Truman Show" (1998) and now this
strange,
cerebral take on Kaufman.
"The only way that I can truly dumb down America is to get to the smart
people
and bring their game down," Carrey quipped when asked how he picks his
roles. "I
have this big bin. It's a bingo thing I got from the church. And I just roll
it,
(pick one out) and go, 'OK.'"
Don't be fooled. Carrey's career is one of the most carefully managed in
Hollywood, and his choices are deliberate. Like Kaufman, this former
stand-up
comedian is driven not just to entertain but also to shock. That's why he
won't
make another "Ace" movie, he said, or a middle-of-the-road romantic comedy.
"I have advisers. We confer on everything," Carrey said, referring to his
brain
trust of agent Nick Stevens and managers Eric Gold and Jimmy Miller. "But it
all
comes down to: Am I going to be able to do something I haven't done before?
Degree of difficulty is important. Is it something that hasn't been seen? I
don't want to just put out software, you know?"
If his recent roles are any indication, something else also guides Carrey's
on-screen persona: the desire to forget himself. Whether he's playing
Kaufman,
the Grinch or a state trooper whose two personalities fall in love with the
same
woman (in the Farrelly brothers' upcoming "Me, Myself and Irene"), Carrey
likes
to dive so deeply into character that he has to be reminded to come up for
air.
After "Man on the Moon" wrapped, he admitted, "I spent three weeks thinking,
'What do I like again? What do I believe? How do I feel about that?' I had
completely let that go. You completely lose yourself. It changes
everything."
He paused, then added with a grin: "Not that I didn't enjoy it."
"Andy Lives!" proclaim the brightly colored posters that have popped up
mysteriously on street corners around the country as "Man on the Moon's"
release
date nears.
But Kaufman devotees - and they're still out there - didn't need a movie to
make
them think he was immortal. Kaufman died of lung cancer in 1984, at age 35.
But
at the time, many who knew him (or who merely followed his prank-filled
career)
thought it was a gag. Some still do.
"When I found out he was sick, (my wife) Rhea (Perlman) and I both went,
'This
is Andy. It's not true.' I wouldn't buy it," said Danny DeVito, who became a
close friend of Kaufman when they did "Taxi" together. "Then, he passed - or
so
they said. We went to the memorial service, and (a videotaped) Andy spoke to
us.
We thought, 'Any minute now, Mr. Wise Guy is going to walk out here.'"
Even after DeVito's production company, Jersey Films, set out to make the
Kaufman movie five years ago, and even after DeVito decided to be in it
(playing
Kaufman's manager George Shapiro), he said, "I always had this strange
feeling
that I was being set up - that Andy was in cahoots with Milos.... Even now,
I
wonder sometimes. I want it so much. Wouldn't it be so great if (he showed
up)
at the premiere?"
In Kaufman circles, this through-the-looking-glass view of life is the norm.
What is real resembles what is not, and sometimes it's hard to tell them
apart.
In Kaufman's stand-up act, for example, he appeared as Foreign Man - a
nervous,
unfunny and heavily accented nebbish who was always on the verge of
flopping.
Then, just when he seemed to be dying onstage, he'd transform himself into
Elvis, curling his lip, slicking his hair and letting loose with a spot-on
impersonation of the King.
"Tenk you vedy much," Kaufman's Foreign Man would say when he finished a
Presley
song. Then he'd shuffle offstage, leaving his audience to wonder: Who was
the
real Andy Kaufman? Is there a real Andy Kaufman?
Split personalities, deceptive disguises, mistaken and muddled identities -
all
were part of the Kaufman mystique. Can it be any surprise that of all the
A-list
actors who wanted to play Kaufman - people such as Ed Norton, Kevin Spacey,
Nic
Cage - the part eventually went to Hollywood's master of make-believe?
Remember how the elastic-faced Carrey morphed into the Riddler in 1995's
"Batman
Forever"? While his star turn in "The Truman Show" displayed his more
contemplative side, Carrey is still one of very few actors in town whom
anyone
can imagine, for example, credibly portraying a fish (he was slated to do so
in
the now-shelved remake of "The Incredible Mr. Limpet"). The role of Kaufman,
of
course, was human. But his sensibility was so otherworldly that he might as
well
have been another species. The actor who played him had to be more than
merely
talented. He had to "get" Kaufman. And from the start, it was apparent that
Carrey did.
"Jim was literally born to play this role," said Bob Zmuda, Kaufman's
closest
friend and a co-executive producer on the film, who first met Carrey when
the
actor asked for feedback on a videotape of himself "doing" Kaufman. "Before
he
showed it to Milos, he wanted to show it to me. I drove over to his house
and he
put the tape in. About a minute into it, I started crying like a baby. If I
hadn't known, I would have thought it was Andy. And this was before makeup,
costume and hair."
Forman, who asked all the contenders to make tapes showing "how they see
themselves as Andy," was similarly wowed.
"I knew that Jim could do all the comedy wonderfully. But I was very
impressed
with the non-comedic, human side of the character. And the physical
resemblance
was spooky," the director said. "Every performer has a fear of failing.
Andy's
brilliance was that he conquered that fear by including failure in his
act....
The whole world was a stage for Andy, and in some way, Jim is the same. But
Andy
absolutely never stepped off the stage."