Sometimes a movie duo works fabulously together onscreen, but the two utterly loathe each other offscreen. Rumor has it this was the case for Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart on Sabrina, Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey on Dirty Dancing, and even Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling on The Notebook. Well, add Batman Forever's dastardly duo of Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey to this list. It turns out Jones loathed Carrey, and had no trouble letting it be known.
While promoting his upcoming Dumb and Dumber To, Jim Carrey appeared on Howard Stern's show for a lengthy interview. About 55 minutes in, talk turns to Carrey's time playing the Riddler in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever, in which Tommy Lee Jones co-starred as Two-Face. Well, it turns out Jones was less than thrilled to be sharing scenes with the comedian, and wasn't shy about letting Carrey know. According to Carrey, Jones said to his face:
"I hate you. I really don't like you…I cannot sanction your buffoonery."
Reached for comment, Tommy Lee Jones offered this as response:
All kidding aside, Jim Carrey was incredibly calm and polite about this pretty aggressive insult. He was actually able to rationalize where Tommy Lee Jones's intense outburst arose: pure professional jealousy. That might seem insane considering at the time one was a rubber faced comedian and the other a well-respected and established actor, but allow Carrey to set the scene:
"I was really looking forward to working with Tommy because he was a fantastic actor, and he still is. I love him. I mean, he's amazing. But he was a little crusty…I think he was just a little freaked out because Dumb and Dumber had come out on the same weekend as Cobb, and Cobb was his big swing for the fences--pardon the pun. And that didn't work out, and it freaked him out. I think it made him--I walked into a restaurant the night before our big scene in the Riddler's lair and the maître d said, 'You're working with Tommy Lee Jones, aren't you?' I said, 'I am.' He said, 'He's in the back corner.' I said, 'Oh, great. I'll go say hello.' And I went up to say hi and the blood drained from his face in such a way that I realized that I had become the face of his pain or something. And he got kind of shaking and hugged me and said, 'I hate you. I really don't like you.' And I was like, 'Wow, okay, what's going on, man?' And he said, 'I cannot sanction your buffoonery.'"
Rumors of behind-the-scenes drama first surfaced out of Batman Forever when director Joel Schumacher called Jones a "bully" for his behavior on set. But Carrey has previously been pretty quiet about the whole affair. Even now, he seems to show no anger or indignation, adding...
"He did not want to work with me at the point, and I said, 'Well you know I think this part requires--the tone of this thing is kind of like child-like evil and I think you might be having some trouble getting there. So, I wish you the best.'"
This is a pretty classy move, especially from a guy who's made a mark literally talking out of his ass.
To see the full Jim Carrey interview, click to page 2.
