Jim Carrey Forever: See The Comedian Tell His Legendary Tommy Lee Jones Tale
Like all good things, the Internet ruined the phrase "I cannot sanction your buffoonery" by memeing it into oblivion. But the story behind this spoken piece of ownage is one that will never get old (but feel free to stop me if you've heard this one before).
When Jim Carrey was making Batman Forever with Tommy Lee Jones, the Harvard-educated former roommate of Al Gore hated the In Living Color funnyman, to the point that he told Carrey as much to his face. This tale was originally relayed on The Howard Stern Show, where Carrey said:
"I was really looking forward to working with Tommy, but he was a little crusty. I think he was just a little freaked out because Dumb And Dumber came out on the same weekend as Cobb, and Cobb was his big swing for the fences and that didn't work out. And that freaked him out a bit."
First off, referring to Tommy Lee Jones as "a little crusty" is the most polite way I've ever heard the actor's curmudgeonly disposition described. But Carrey went on to detail their initial encounter the night before shooting:
"I walked into a restaurant the night before our big scene in the Riddler's lair. 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. He got up, kind of shaking, hugged me and said 'I hate you. I really don't like you.'
When Carrey pressed Jones as to why he already harbored such a strong distaste for him, Jones simply replied:
"I cannot sanction your buffoonery."
Amazing right? But you already knew all of this, I'm sure. No, the real reason for this post isn't so that you can read me relay one of the great Hollywood insults third-hand, but so that Carrey can tell you about the incident himself. The actor's been making the rounds lately, in part to promote Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond - The Story of Jim Carrey & Andy Kaufman Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton, Chris Smith's documentary the profiles Carrey's transformation into the brilliantly loony late comic. His latest appearance was on Norm Macdonald Live, where the anecdote came complete with Carrey's usual manic style of impersonation.
Check out the video here (the TLJ bit starts around the hour-and-eight-minute mark):
Carrey's been a master of weirdness lately, both in terms of his public diplays of spirituality, as well as an ugly lawsuit over a former girlfriend's suicide. But he'll always remain one of the great storytellers of our time, able to become other people at the drop of a dime. His Tommy Lee Jones encounter is one for the books, and I'd love to have an entire collection of his bizarre run-ins with other creative types who had no idea how to process his larger than life personality -- VH1 Storytellers: The Ace Ventura Edition.
