Released in 2004, “Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind” remains, almost 20 years later, one of the most moving romantic dramas. The fascinating screenplay exploiting the memory of love, the poetic direction of Michel Gondry and the duo Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet made it a real success. The two main actors were judiciously used “against type” of their traditional roles: Kate Winslet embodies an exuberant young woman and Jim Carrey, an introverted man. If their performances were widely praised, the American-Canadian actor nevertheless hated the shooting of this film according to the confidences of the producer Anthony Bergman reported by the American site IndieWire .
The producer speaks of a ” chaotic ” shoot during which Michel Gondry ” never shouted ‘action’ or ‘cut’.”
Anthony Bergman explains : ” People were thrown into a scene without being able to put themselves in character .” And for Jim Carrey it was even more difficult: ” It’s a very different type of role that Jim had. He’s a real perfectionist. The question was: ‘How can we destabilize him so that he can’t prepare, so that he can’t do his ‘Jim Carrey’?’ “
“This is the worst set I have ever been on!”
Being destabilized was difficult for Jim Carrey, as the producer describes it: ” Jim… he hated it. We knew he was going to hate it. He was the biggest star in the world, controlling every shoot, and we were taking that away from him .” The man remembers Carrey shouting, ” This is the worst set I’ve ever been on, I don’t know what the f*** is going on! ” and the crew trying to reassure the actor, ” It’s okay. That’s how you get great stuff .”
Anthony Bergman recalls that Jim Carrey ” was getting paid $20 million to make movies like ‘Bruce Almighty’ ” and adds, ” We were paying him a fraction of that. I had an initial conversation with him and said, ‘ Look, the only reason we’re in this is because we want to make a good movie. You’re not in this for the money . We’re not in this for the money. We’re only in this because we think there’s a really good movie we can make here .'”
Jim Carrey ended up trusting Michel Gondry and delivering ” a spectacular performance ” despite the fact that ” he was very unsure of himself at the beginning of the shoot. “
Although initially unpleasant, the experience must not have been too traumatic for Jim Carrey, who worked with Michel Gondry again a few years later on the series “Kidding” .