Watch Jim Carrey Tell The Story Of Tommy Lee Jones' Hatred For Jim Carrey
Tommy Lee Jones is not a big fan of Jim Carrey. The two actors worked together on Joel Schumacher's neon-lit live-action cartoon Batman Forever, and ever since then, Carrey has been telling a now-famous story about how Jones simply could not stand him. You may have heard this story before, but now you can see the story come to life as Jim Carrey acts it out! Watch Jim Carrey's Tommy Lee Jones story below.
Back when Batman Forever was in pre-production, Jim Carrey was just blowing-up from rubbery faced comedian to multimillion dollar super star. As a result, much of the hype leading up to Batman Forever was focused on Carrey's performance as Batman's green-clad nemesis The Riddler. This apparently didn't sit too well with Academy Award winner Tommy Lee Jones, who was playing Two-Face in the film and was not even slightly in the mood for Carrey's bullshit.
Appearing recently on Norm Macdonald Live, Carrey recounted the story for Norm Macdonald, much to everyone's amusement. You can watch it below – it begins around the 1:08:29 mark (thanks to Birth.Movies.Death. for bringing this one to our attention).
Jim Carrey's Tommy Lee Jones story
As Carrey tells it, he ran into Jones at a restaurant right before the two began filming together, and it didn't go so well. "The maitre d' said, 'Oh, I hear you're working with Tommy Lee Jones. He's over in the corner having dinner,'" Carrey says. "I went over and I said, 'Hey Tommy, how are you doing?' and the blood just drained from his face." Carrey tried to salvage the situation, but Mr. Lee Jones was not having it, eventually telling Carrey, "I cannot sanction your buffoonery."
Macdonald suggests that maybe Jones was unhappy about Carrey walking into a room and thus taking all his star power away, but Carrey magnanimously suggests, "He might have been uncomfortable doing that work [in Batman Forever]...that's not really his style of stuff."
Carrey has told this story several times before, most notably on The Howard Stern Show, where the actor said, "I was really looking forward to working with Tommy, but he was a little crusty."
Jones is a phenomenal actor, delivering stellar performances in films like No Country for Old Men and Lincoln, but he's not exactly known for his lightheartedness. Even in the frothy Men in Black films, Jones was the straight man for Will Smith's comedic antics. If you don't believe that Jones is a bit "crusty", as Carrey says, just have a look at this photo of him reacting to a really funny Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell bit at the 2013 Golden Globes.
And if you're still not convinced, look at this photo of Jones reacting to someone holding up an adorable puppy and asking, "Would you like to pet this puppy, Mr. Jones?"
Okay, that's just the same picture again, but I'm pretty sure that's how he'd react in that situation as well. In Jones' defense, Carrey's buffoonery was really off the charts in Batman Forever. At one point, Carrey knocks someone out with a coffee pot and then shrieks, "Caffeine will kill 'ya!" I don't think I could sanction such buffoonery either. No matter what, though, I'd really like a filmmaker to cast Jones and Carrey in another film together so that the two actors can perhaps bury the hatchet. Or, at the very least, give us another great story about how miserable Tommy Lee Jones is.