Martin Freeman Mocks Jim Carrey For Not Breaking Character For Months Due to Intensive Method Acting

jim carry method acting

Martin Freeman has made himself famous for playing roles softly and inductively, such as the Bilbo Baggins. However, lately the actor has mocked Jim Carrey for his devotion to method acting.

To describe Jim Carrey’s performance in the biopic called “Man on the Moon” (1991), Freeman used words such as ‘deranged,’ ‘self-aggrandizing’, ‘selfish,’ and ‘narcissistic pretentious nonsense,’ according to the Daily Mail. Jim Carrey played the role of the globally famous comic actor Andy Kaufman.

Freeman here is talking about Carry’s behavior outside off the screen. Because to get into Andy’s character, Carry had spent 4 months adopting the mannerisms, way of thinking, walking, literally everything. When Andy’s family came to visit, even then, he pretended to be Andy and met them as if he really was Andy. Obviously, that was a little unsettling for the family, but Carry never came out of character for four consecutive months.

This is highlighted in “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond” which revolves around the role and the length to which Carry went with his “Method Acting.

His devotion to completely get in character was so great that he had asked everyone to call him Andy. On the podcast “Off MenuFreeman said,

You need to keep grounded in reality, because at some point someone’s going to say “Cut” and it’s no good going, What does cut mean because I’m Napoleon?

Adding up to his statement he further said,

You’re not supposed to become the f***ing character it was ‘highly amateurish’ for Carrey to have gone so far.

The concept of method acting was originally developed by a Russian director/actor named “Konstantin Stanislavski”. The approach is to basically stay in character even when the filming has stopped. It demands the actor to fully embrace the personality and characteristics of the role they are playing.

Method actors cause distress to fellow actors and directors and almost everybody who was working on the project. This is because of the simple fact that they aren’t themselves. Freeman is not the only one to speak against this intense approach to work through. However, in my opinion, some method actors have done such a brilliant job that the characters played by them can never be forgotten!

Be it Joaquin Phoenix, Heath Ledger, or Jared Lato, all used method acting to play the very important role of Joker, and each one of them had their own styles. But all of them embraced to think, see, live and act like the Joker. And it’s pretty evident audiences have admired the roles played by all three of them. In fact, Joker’s role is so crucial to the Batman franchise that there’d be no Batman without the Joker.

Talking other examples, let’s consider Al Pachino for Scarface. Back in the days when they could complete a film in a month. Pachino asked for a month’s practice to get into the character and even requested his director to speak to him only in Hispanic, which he totally did not understand. But even decades after the film, Scarface remains a classic that is not to be forgotten.

American actors are more likely to support it, while British actors are more likely to ridicule it.

Method actors present you with a photograph. ‘Real actors give you an oil painting,’ Charles Laughton chastised, while Sir Anthony Hopkins described it as “a lot of c**p.”

What are your views? Comment on the section below. Let us know your favorite actors and movie scenes!

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Mohid Moosani

Moosani is a night owl who is either binge watching his favorite shows or scribbling on his notebook writing short stories. Often showing up late at work and gulping down 6-7 cups of coffee is his usual practice.


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