Martin Freeman: Jim Carrey’s Method Acting On ‘Man On The Moon’ Was ‘Narcissistic’
Martin Freeman slammed Jim Carrey’s method acting in the 1999 biopic Man on the Moon, calling it “narcissistic,” the Independent reports.
Netflix’s 2017 documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond examined Carrey’s performance as the comedian Andy Kaufman, revealing that he spent four months never breaking character and insisted on being called “Andy” even when the cameras stopped rolling. 49-year-old Freeman called Carrey’s approach to the role as “self-aggrandizing, selfish and narcissistic,” even arguing that the star “should have been fired” over some of his on-set antics.
Freeman went on to call Carrey’s method acting “highly amateurish” to go so far and “the idea anything in our culture would celebrate that or support it is deranged, literally deranged”.
The Hobbit actor further continued to say, “I am a very lapsed Catholic but if you believe in transubstantiation, then you’re going somewhere along the line of, ‘I became the character.’ No you didn’t, you’re not supposed to become the f—ing character because you’re supposed to be open to stuff that happens in real life because someone at some stage is going to say ‘cut’ and there’s no point going, ‘What does ‘cut’ mean? I’m Napoleon!’ Shut up.”
“You need to keep grounded in reality, and that’s not to say you don’t lose yourself in between action and cut but the rest of it is absolutely pretentious nonsense…” Freeman continued, “It’s not a professional attitude. Get the job done man, f—ing do your work.”
In the opening credits of Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, Carrey explained that Kaufman spoke to him “telepathically” when he heard the actor would be playing him. “It was absurd but somehow it worked,” Carrey said. “That’s the moment when Andy Kaufman showed up, tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Sit down, I’ll be doing my movie.’ What happened afterwards was out of my control.”
Watch the trailer for Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond below:
