Milos Forman’s biopic Man On The Moon has gone tragically overlooked since its 1999 release. The story of Andy Kaufman, one of the stranger and more experimental comedians of all time, starred Jim Carrey in a role for which he was criminally overlooked come Oscar time. And, as evidenced by the trailer for Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, Carrey was more into the role than we all might have believed at first.
There were reports of Carrey staying in character during filming, but perhaps we didn’t consider just what it meant to stay in character as a purposefully antagonistic and difficult comedian like Kaufman. This documentary, with tons of archival of footage and new interviews, shines a light on what had to be a bizarre and taxing set. Check out the trailer:
Director Chris Smith’s fascinating deep dive into actor Jim Carrey’s time spent portraying famed and complicated comedian Andy Kaufman. Using approximately 100 hours of footage shot on the set of Man on the Moon documenting Carrey’s transformation into Kaufman for four months.
Jim Carrey earned critical acclaim and a Golden Globe for the performance, but many of the production’s most Kaufmanesque moments played out behind the scenes, thankfully captured on video by Andy’s former girlfriend, Lynne Margulies and former writing partner, Bob Zmuda. In Jim & Andy, Carrey looks back at the resulting footage 18 years later, reflecting on how he and Andy came up in oddly parallel universes, his experience channeling Andy and Tony and more broadly the spiritual journey of his career.
Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond will debut on Netflix November 17. If you haven’t seen Man on The Moon I highly suggest it as well.
