Jerry “the King” Lawler has spoken in the past about having a poor experience working with Jim Carrey on “Man on the Moon.” In the film, Carrey portrays Andy Kaufman and during filming, used a method acting approach. This means Carrey attempted to be “in character” as Kaufman even when cameras weren’t rolling for the 80 or so days of filming.
During filming, Carrey began antagonizing Lawler even though in real-life, Kaufman and Lawler were friends. Lawler was a recent guest on Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions and talked about the experience working with Carrey.
“He obviously thought we really didn’t like each other,” Lawler said on the show. He would continue to talk about a conversation he had with the director about Carrey’s attitude toward him.
“I asked Milos, I said ‘Milos, has this freakin guy not read the script? Surely, does he not realize that Andy and I were actually in real life were friends?’ And I’ll never forget this, he goes, ‘Oh, Jerry, Jerry. He’s the 800-pound gorilla, what can I do?’”
Lawler says the director was insinuating that Carrey is a huge star and there wasn’t much he could do about his behavior. Lawler would continue to say that he doesn’t feel Carrey got Kaufman.
Carrey recently starred in the Sonic the Hedgehog film. He is also the star of the show “Kidding” on Showtime.
Lawler’s comments can be heard in the player below:
