Martin Freeman: Jim Carrey’s Man on the Moon Method Acting is ‘Narcissistic Bollocks’

Though it earned him a Golden Globe, Jim Carrey’s performance in the 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon has practically become a cautionary tale in the film industry about the inconveniences of method acting to a production. In a recent appearance on the Off Menu podcast (via The Telegraph), Martin Freeman criticized the practice of method acting in general, citing Carrey’s behavior working on Man on the Moon as a particularly noteworthy culprit.

“[It’s] the most self-aggrandizing, selfish, narcissistic f—ing bollocks I have ever seen,” Freeman said. “When younger, I think it’s quite common to think that completely losing yourself is the goal [of acting] because it feels grown-up and it feels proper. But the older I’ve got, the more I don’t really look to that. To be honest, it’s quite a pain in the arse when someone ‘loses themselves.’ It is a massive pain in the arse because it’s no longer a craft and a job.”

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The Hobbit and Sherlock star’s comments began as an observation that British actors often want to “get on with it and get it done” to help move a production along. To Freeman, method acting is a “highly impractical way of working.”

Carrey’s method approach was explored in the 2017 Netflix documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond. The film delves into how Carrey’s intense approach affected both the crew’s productivity as well as Carrey’s sense of self.

“For me, and I’m genuinely sure Jim Carrey is a lovely and smart person, but it was the most self-aggrandizing, selfish, narcissistic fucking bollocks I have ever seen,” Freeman said. “The idea that anything in our culture would celebrate or support it is deranged, literally deranged.”

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“You need to keep grounded in reality,” Freeman continued. “That’s not to say you don’t lose yourself in the time between ‘action’ and ‘cut,’ but I think the rest of it is absolute pretentious nonsense and highly amateurish. It is not professional. Get the job done, do your work.”

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J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.

(Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images)