The actor who hates Jim Carrey’s method acting with a passion: “Selfish, narcissistic bollocks”
Method acting has long caused controversy because, really, who wants to have to work alongside someone who refuses to step out of character when the camera stops rolling?
With famous champions of method acting, including Daniel Day-Lewis and Christian Bale (although the latter somehow claims not to be a method actor), you can understand why the techniques are used. Some incredible performances have come from actors being incredibly difficult behind the scenes, like when Day-Lewis asked to be carried and fed by crew members during the filming of My Left Foot. Some actors are less offensive in their method acting approach, though, such as when Robert De Niro took on the role of a cab driver to prepare for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.
It’s typically only these leading Hollywood men who take on method acting, somehow getting away with irritating behaviour in the name of art. For others, however, there’s nothing worse than the idea of working with a method actor, stuck in the company of a pretentious star who thinks they’re above human decency because they’re trying to ‘get into the mind of their character’.
One actor in particular had some pretty strong things to say about the method acting Jim Carrey utilised for his performance as Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon. The actor’s dedication to the role was so intense that he found he was unable to separate himself from his character, which was documented in the film Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond.
Martin Freeman, star of The Lord of the Rings, just can’t see why Carrey would go to such great lengths to lose himself in the role, figuring how irritating it would be to have to work with the actor during this time.
Appearing on the Off Menu podcast, Freeman told James Acaster and Ed Gamble how much he would detest working with Carrey in that situation, saying, “He’s not only doing this, he’s brought a fucking camera with him, you know? And music. For me, and I’m sure, genuinely sure, Jim Carrey is a lovely and smart person, but it was the most self-aggrandising, selfish, fucking narcissistic, bollocks I’ve ever seen. And the idea that anything in our culture would celebrate that or support it is deranged. I mean, literally deranged?”
He continued, “‘I became the character’, no, you didn’t. You’re not supposed to become the fucking character. Because you’re supposed to be open to stuff that happens in real life, you know, because somehow at some point, someone’s gonna say cut. And it’s no good going, what does cut mean? Because I’m Napoleon. It’s like, shut up, man. You know, you need to keep grounded, I think, in reality, and that’s not to say that you don’t lose yourself for the time between action and cut, but I think the rest of it is absolute pretentious nonsense.”
The actor even went as far as to suggest that Carrey should’ve been “sectioned” for the whole ordeal, because this was merely a case of him losing his grip on reality, not committing an incredible artistic act of sacrifice and dedication.
“I think it’s highly amateurish. It’s essentially an amateurish notion. Because it’s not perfected, you know what I mean? Like, it’s not, for me, it’s not a professional attitude, you know, get the job done, man, fucking do your work, you know?” Freeman concluded.
