“He said it was his favourite”: the movie Jim Carrey recommended to Charlotte Gainsbourg
You’ve got to admit, Jim Carrey and Charlotte Gainsbourg aren’t two names you’d ever put together to star alongside each other on the big screen.
Carrey is, of course, the comedic American icon who has charmed countless viewers over the years with his larger-than-life characters – starting out in sketch comedy, he soon took Hollywood by storm with a string of popular films, goofing around in everything from Dumb and Dumber to The Mask, not forgetting his prosthetic-laden performance in the festive classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas, too.
While he has occasionally shown himself to be capable of a more unconventional role, like his leading performance in Michel Gondry’s surrealist Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for the most part, Carrey is associated with exaggerated comedy… What’s more, he has dedicated the last six years of his life to voicing Eggman in the animated Sonic the Hedgehog franchise – and nothing else.
On the other hand, Charlotte Gainsbourg has always been immersed in the world of boundary-pushing and arthouse cinema, which was to be expected considering she was born to icons Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. She began making music with her father as a child, controversially singing a track with him named ‘Lemon Incest’ when she was just 12. Her career was never going to be conventional.
She soon proved to be a promising star of the screen, making her debut alongside Catherine Deneuve in 1984’s Paroles et Musique. Gainsbourg appeared in various French films when she was young, and Birkin even had legendary filmmaker Agnes Varda to stay for a year while they worked on projects like Kung Fu Master, which also starred the young actor, but as an adult, she has branched out to English-language productions, often collaborating with contentious filmmakers like Lars von Trier.
So, at what point did Carrey and Gainsbourg find themselves crossing paths? It certainly wasn’t during the filming of movies like Antichrist or Lux Æterna, that’s for sure – rather, it was in 2016, when Greek filmmaker Alexandros Avranas cast them both in his thriller Dark Crimes, in which Carrey took on the grittier, rather against-type role as a detective who gets embroiled in a murder case.
It was during this shoot that Carrey recommended Gainsbourg a movie which, rather surprisingly, she hadn’t already seen. “I’m ashamed to say I had never seen this before. It was recommended by Jim Carrey when we were shooting together – he said it was his favourite film,” she told the Guardian.
She was talking about Network, Sidney Lumet’s astounding take on live television, buoyed by an incredible performance by Peter Finch, who posthumously won an Oscar for his performance, which would tragically be his last. He played Howard Beale, a news anchor whose breakdown over the network’s failing ratings, which is broadcast live, miraculously leads to success.
“I was blown away by how modern it was, and the beauty that we sometimes forget in our films today. The framing is so interesting, the light beautiful, and the acting spectacular,” Gainsbourg added. Network really is a masterclass in tight, well-executed performances, as demonstrated by Beatrice Straight, who won the ‘Best Supporting Actress’ Oscar despite only being on screen for five minutes and two seconds.
Faye Dunaway also won the ‘Best Actress’ award, while Paddy Chayefsky picked up an Academy Award for his writing. Network is easily one of the greatest, most well-acted movies of the ‘70s, and it seems like as soon as Gainsbourg watched the masterpiece, it ascended the ranks as one of her favourites, too.
