The 1990s movie Jim Carrey called “sheer hell” to make from start to finish: “It was so liberating”
While some method actors take great pride in destroying themselves for their art, Jim Carrey didn’t enter that questionable pantheon until the end of the 1990s.
He started the decade as the self-proclaimed “token white guy” on the sketch series In Living Color, but he ended it as one of the biggest, most popular, and highest-paid stars in Hollywood, rounding out the decade by plunging the depths of immersion to do justice to Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon.
That was his final role of the decade, but it wasn’t the one he called “sheer hell.” That’s a term many of his co-stars and colleagues might have used, though, since his method madness ended up irritating a lot of his collaborators, with his total avoidance of dropping character proving to be a pain in the arse.
At first glance, one of Carrey’s signature performances, where he gurns and mugs his way through an inoffensive 90 or so minutes of slapstick comedy, wouldn’t jump out as something that waged constant psychological warfare on the Canadian funnyman. And yet, The Mask‘s titular prop did exactly that.
“Although it was sheer hell putting on the mask every day for four hours, it was so liberating as an actor,” he explained. It wasn’t quite as bad as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, when he was ready to walk away from a $20 million if the Bee Gees hadn’t intervened, but he hated it nonetheless.
Much like the Grinch, Carrey would have known what he was getting into. After all, the clue is right there in the title, and as the title character, he wouldn’t have been shocked to discover that great swathes of The Mask would, in fact, require him to wear a mask that turned his head into a garish green creation.
Still, sitting in the makeup chair for hours on end and then having to deal with the makeup and prosthetics on a daily basis was something he grew to despise, but it did have one positive effect: disappearing into the part allowed him to disappear even further into the psyche of Stanley Ipkiss’ manic alter-ego.
“As actors, we put on masks all the time by assuming our character’s identity, but then to be able to put a mask on top of that mask was exhilarating,” Carrey shared. “But I also liked the metaphor inherent in the movie. There is a definite message in there about the masks we all put on every day.”
He might have gone through hell every morning by being plastered into the character’s unmistakeable, giant-toothed, and chrome-domed visage, but he felt it was worth it in the end, and box office receipts would agree.
