Date: 12/23/99
Looking back on this past year and the films that have been released, one could surmise that it was a year of long awaited and highly anticipated films. First, in May, Mike Myers returned to the big screen in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Not long afterward, George Lucas finally gave us a prequel to Star Wars with Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace. Then, after over ten years without directing a film, Stanley Kubrick provided the last movie he'd ever make, Eyes Wide Shut.
All of these films were long in the making, save for the Austin Powers sequel, which had been expected, since it's 1996 original was released. However, one of this holiday's movies, which went into production not even a year ago, still has audiences waiting with baited breath. It seems as if we've been hearing about Man On The Moon, Milos Forman's latest biopic on the life and times of famed comedian Andy Kaufman, for at least a few years by now. First, there was the debate over who was going to play Kaufman, and dozens of A-list actors auditioned on videotape for the director. Then, during production, the actor selected to play Kaufman, Jim Carrey, wound up in the hospital with a neck injury after filming a scene with wrestler Jerry Lawler. Few in the know believed the headlines that Carrey was really injured, chalking it up to the same publicity stunt that Kaufman pulled when he wrestled Lawler for real over twenty years ago. Of course, who could forget the publicity stunt which occurred during the press junket for Man On The Moon just a few weeks ago?
But what about Kaufman's life deserves memorializing in a movie? He grew up on Long Island in New York as a strange child who would spend most of his time performing imaginary television shows to his bedroom wall. Then, after years of performing his bizarre act in comedy clubs and on such sketch comedy shows as Saturday Night Live Kaufman's manager, George Shapiro was able to land a role for him on a new sitcom. Taxi went on to become a successful television show which ran for five years, and Kaufman, ever the performance artist, hated every minute of it. In his spare time, Kaufman became a wrestler, though he would only take on women until Jerry Lawler came along. All the while, Kaufman and his writing partner Bob Zmuda also performed as his alter ego, Tony Clifton; a loud, obnoxious Vegas lounge singer. Kaufman/Clifton and Zmuda's pranks began to irritate audiences, and as it seemed as if the public was turning on him, Taxi was cancelled. Shortly after the demise of the show, Kaufman was diagnosed with the cancer that wound up killing him in 1985.
People's reaction to Kaufman's antics were so polarized that even his devoted followers and friends were baffled as to whether the situations he set up were serious, or just an opportunity for a comedic moment. For instance, Man On The Moon's screenwriter Larry Karaszewski didn't believe the reports of Kaufman's untimely death. "A memory that sticks in my head is walking down the street in New York one day and looking over to see the Post being sold, and it said 'Andy Kaufman Dead'," Karaszewski recalled. "I just started laughing. I thought, 'Oh, My God! I can't believe he got them to write that story!' So I was one of those people who just did not believe he was dead for a second."
Even those that knew Kaufman best, like Danny DeVito, who worked with him on Taxi, could not figure the performer out. "I was a big fan of Andy's from watching him on television on Saturday Night Live, and whenever he was going to do the bongos, Rhea [Pearlman] and I would run to the television to watch," recalled DeVito who appears in Man In The Moon as George Shapiro. "When I found out he was going to be on Taxi, I was really thrilled, and actually, John Belushi was a good friend of mine. He said 'You're in for it. You're in for it with Andy!' The first day on set at Paramount, we were just getting to meet each other, right, and so me, Marilu and Tony and Judd were all hanging out, you know, that first day. Sitting at the end of this table is Andy, and he's got a headset and a tape recorder in front of him. So I'm watching him, and we're schmoozing down at the other end of the table, and I figured I'd go down and break the ice. So I go alone and I say, 'Hey Andy, Danny'. And he takes the headset off, and he goes 'Hello'. And he shakes my hand; I shake his. I say, 'So what kind of music you listening to?' And he gives me the headset and I put it on. And this is what I hear, 'Bobabababebeta! Badababd! Bekeka! Yatevy!' Holy sh-t! Belushi was right. I'm in for it. So I give the headset back and I say, 'Good, Andy, that's really nice.' At that moment, I said 'is this guy the consummate actor who is like, totally immersed in learning this language that he's created for this character?' Or is he sitting down there for twenty minutes waiting for some sucker to come down there and ask 'What kind of music are you listening to?' I went for the second one. I thought, definitely, this guy was screwing with my head."
"At that moment, and I was very fortunate, I realized that it was never going to be a normal kind of situation," DeVito smiled in thinking about the incident. "He wasn't an actor, and he was not a stand up comic. My take on it at that time was that he's a performance artist. He's a guy that does things to screw around with you a little bit, you know, to change the psychology of the room, as it were."
Yet at the same time many who were working in show business at the time felt as if Kaufman changed the face of comedy through his daring acts. One of the producers of Man On The Moon, Michael Shamberg, may have put it best. "I saw him on Saturday Night Live and just went, 'Wow! That's like really different'," Shamberg remembered. "At the time, SNL itself was a new comedy form, and this was a little branch off, and it was very exciting to say, 'They're finally making television that's about my generation'."
For Jim Carrey himself, there was no doubt that a movie should be made about Kaufman, despite the fact that he wasn't really aware of the comedian when he was alive. "I think the most important thing was getting that sucker after the haircut," Carrey laughed when asked about his childhood memories of seeing Kaufman perform. "As far as his impression on me, he just opened up the doors. First of all, you don't have to be funny now. You just have to be interesting. When you look at people like Andy Kaufman taking the chances he took, failure is okay; failure is all right. It's just part of the trip. I think it was a different slant. It was like 'I'm going to do what I do and what makes me happy, and if it finds an audience, fine. If it doesn't, it's okay'. As long as you're not complacent about it."
But what about all of those crazy stunts Kaufman pulled, such as starting a fist fight on a sketch television show called Fridays? "I don't think he needs an explanation, really," Carrey said thoughtfully. "I mean, say you explain Andy Kaufman, you kill him! That's the triumph of his life. I think he beat death because he can't be explained and nobody knows if it's for real or not. And that way he's immortal."
Indeed, Carrey is certain that today's audiences will "get" what Kaufman was all about. "I think Andy was ahead of his time, and I think we all take ourselves too seriously," said the actor. "I think they're ready for him. He was not understood by the people that were his contemporaries, and I think that nowadays there will be a better understanding."
Only time will tell if foreign audiences will relate to or even care about Kaufman, a comedian and performer they are still not really familiar with, a fact that doesn't bother Carrey at all. "The strange thing is, the reaction has been kind of cool because, you know, there are a lot of people from the European press that have screened it have no idea who he is and maybe you are better off," Carrey exclaimed. "They seemed to be wild about it. On the basis of a very interesting artist and a person who challenged people's beliefs, and I think there's enough of that to make it a good movie and a good story."
It was this very story, along with Carrey's own love for Kaufman that led him to audition for the role in Man On The Moon. "The word came down that Milos wanted to see tape of people being Andy," explained Carrey. "A lot of my people came and said, 'You know, this is dangerous, you know you put this out here and they could run it on television, it could be rejected and it looks bad for you. You're a big star.' Just think at some point if you really want something… It's Milos Forman we're talking about; it's not a student film. It's somebody that you want to work with, and maybe you have to humble yourself a bit and do whatever you have to do. It became so much fun for me to do anyway, it was a pleasure to do it and that was that. What the hell is a star? You know, we're all actors, and if I'm not gonna get the part, what, am I gonna sit there and go, 'Yes, I'm still a big star!' There's no satisfaction there."
And Carrey wasn't the only actor to put himself on videotape as Andy Kaufman. Well known actors such as Nicolas Cage, Kevin Spacey and Edward Norton were quick to do it also. That is how loved Kaufman is amongst thespians. Still, when Forman saw Carrey's videotape, he knew he had found the actor to play Kaufman. According to Forman, Carrey wasn't just acting as Kaufman, he was Kaufman. Indeed, during the production of Man On The Moon Carrey stayed in character as either Kaufman or Clifton both on camera and off.
Carrey would show up on the set wearing paper bag over his head, so nobody would see him out of character. Director Milos Forman still claims he doesn't know the actor. "I don't know Jim Carrey. I never met Jim Carrey on the set. Never. I either worked with Andy Kaufman, or Tony Clifton," said Forman in his Czechoslovakian accent. "It took a few days to adjust to this, because you have to deal with each one in a different way. But then, strangely enough, I started to enjoy the game, and then I discovered that it's helping the movie because it brings itself on the set because the crew loved watching us play this stupid game."
That the director of Man On The Moon wouldn't really know the film's star seems like a preposterous idea, and with little prodding, Forman admitted, "I met Jim Carrey twice. But that was only over the weekends during the shootings when I needed to ask him to talk to Tony Clifton."
DeVito is quick to back up Forman, the director he worked with on One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. "Jim only came to the set twice in the four months we shot, so I mean, I really overpaid the guy," joked DeVito, who is also the film's producer. "I loved that experience, you know, really getting into it. But, it could have been a producer's nightmare. You got the biggest star in the country, and a lot of these guys pull the bulls--t, you know, 'I only work ten hours portal to portal'. And if I said, 'Jim, let's get to work at four this morning', he's there. That was the great thing."
And Carrey didn't only take on Kaufman's persona, but also that of Tony Clifton, at which point he became somewhat difficult to deal with. "We'd be there at seven o'clock for the shoot, and he'd show up on set at 11:30 or noon," DeVito recounted. "He looked like he got hit by a truck. He'd come to work like he was up all night. And plus he smelled like perfume and Limburger cheese. You come close to him, I swear, your eyes would water. One day, Ron Myer, who's the head of Universal, came, and Tony knew he was coming. So what does he do? He goes and he bathes his hands in limburger cheese, he comes over to Ron Myer and he's like shaking his hand and rubbing his hands all over him, 'Mr. Myer I tell you that you run that studio so good, you're really the best. It's really nice to see you'!"
Bob Zmuda, Kaufman's real life performance partner, thought Carrey did the right thing by staying in character during the entire production of Man On The Moon "This was a choice Jim made," Zmuda exclaimed. "And here's why, Jim looked at it as if Andy Kaufman himself left a blue print on how to play him. I'll tell you how exactly. Andy never drank, never smoked, he was a vegetarian, holistic medicine, but when he became Tony Clifton, he'd drink, he'd smoke, he'd eat meat . . . there was a separate car he drove when he was Andy than when he was Tony. George Shapiro even made a contract with Paramount that Tony Clifton had a parking spot with his name on it right next to Andy's. They had separate dressing rooms. Jim Carrey looks at this and says, 'Hmmm. I see now what Andy Kaufman does when he plays a character.' So now he goes, 'I'm gonna do the same thing. I will do the same thing when I play Tony, and I will do the same thing when I play Andy.' See? Because he's trying to get as close to how Kaufman would handle it."
In order to perfect his portrayal of Kaufman, Carrey said he "spent a lot of time with the family, with close friends of the family. I inhabited his early homes, and spent time in his room, closing the door by myself and making up shows like he did. A lot of very intimate information was given to me by his father. He was very forthcoming as far as their relationship together."
Carrey became so adept at playing Kaufman, that even in very private moments he wouldn't break character. "I went to bed as Andy," the actor smiled a mischievous grin. "And it was very strange and wonderful. Walking down my hall in the dark and turning off lights in the middle of the night. I woke up in the morning and jumped into his shoes. It was amazing."
However, this will probably be the last time Carrey goes to such drastic lengths to play a role. "I wouldn't work in that way for any other project, I don't think, but Andy was that way," said Carrey. "Andy was a person who opened his eyes in the morning and the circus began. He never got nervous about being on a television show, he thought they were silly. He didn't go, 'action', and all of a sudden Andy went into character, he was the character. He was so committed in fact that people thought he was sick. I'm a comic you know, and to do anything less than commit like he did would have been disrespectful."
Actually, Carrey's performance in Man On The Moon is so astounding that many critics who have seen advance screenings have been whispering the words 'Oscar nomination' on their way out. But the subject of the Academy Awards is one Carrey tries to avoid. "The experience itself was so incredible, and I still to this day sit around and say, 'Is this ever going to happen again?" Carrey said of making the movie. "This is never going to happen again in that way. It was an odyssey for everybody. What I'm saying is that the experience was so incredible that if something like that happened on top of it, I'd have a heart attack or something. It'd be kind of ungrateful to sit here and expect something else to come my way from that."
Even though Carrey thinks he was robbed of a nomination for his portrayal of Truman Burbank in The Truman Show, the actor isn't about to just take serious roles to get nominated. "I don't want to get uppity," he joked. "You know the danger for me is to start choosing all my parts because they're good for an Oscar. I like to be funny. I think that's a great thing. And I never decided at one point to go, 'I'm going to be a serious actor now'. I just want to do everything I can, and many different types of characters and pictures."
So then, what will Carrey be doing after he stars in a live-action version of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas? "I'm looking forward to getting out of America's face right now after the Grinch," he laughed easily. "I think the most interesting person can become old hat if he's always there, so I like to take time off and live a life. . . and maybe work construction."
