Martin Freeman Calls Jim Carrey's Man on the Moon Performance Selfish

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Martin Freeman calls Jim Carrey's performance in Man on the Moon “selfish.” Released in 1999, Man on the Moon stars Jim Carrey as the legendary comedian, Andy Kaufman. While the film wasn’t very successful critically or commercially, it is remembered today because of Carrey’s transformative performance as Kaufman, a role which he won a Golden Globe for a year after he won the same award for The Truman Show.

Carrey made multiple iconic comedies during the ‘90s, such as Ace Ventura, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber, but his dramatic performances near the latter end of the decade signaled a turning point in his career. His next dramatic role was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is commonly considered the best of his career. While his on-screen performance in Man on the Moon is memorable, it is also notable due to Carrey’s uncompromising method acting, as he stayed in character as Kaufman both on and offset for the entirety of the film’s production. The 2017 Netflix documentary, Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, chronicles the unbelievable extent to which Carrey went to embody Kaufman.

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Now, appearing on the Off Menu podcast, Martin Freeman has some choice words regarding Carrey’s method acting antics on the set of Man on the Moon. Freeman, an actor known for Black Panther, The Office, and The Hobbit trilogy, believes Carrey’s behavior on set was unprofessional, amateurish, and a fireable offense. Read Freeman’s full comments below, per ET Canada:

For me, and I’m genuinely sure Jim Carrey is a lovely and smart person, but it was the most self-aggrandizing, selfish, f**king narcissistic bollocks I have ever seen. The idea anything in our culture would celebrate that or support it is deranged, literally deranged. 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 because I’m Napoleon?" Shut up.

Freeman’s rant raises some very interesting questions regarding the validity of method acting, a technique that was originally developed by Russian actor, Konstantin Stanislavski. Other method actors, most famously Daniel Day-Lewis, have fully immersed themselves in their roles without any accusations of unprofessionalism, though Marlon Brando was famously difficult to work with onset.

The problem Freeman seems to take issue with is using method acting as a guise to behave unprofessionally on set, rather than method acting itself. Recent accusations of unprofessionalism against Joss Whedon along with allegations against Noel Clarke on the set of Doctor Who, have started a dialogue about inappropriate on-set behavior. Freeman’s choice words on Carrey's behavior on set of Man on the Moon are a welcome addition to the current discourse.