Jim Carrey once got so angry on a film set that the director thought he was about to 'punch him in the face'.
One of Hollywood's finest was the star of an Oscar-winning movie alongside the likes of Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, and Elijah Wood.
The Michel Gondry-led film, written by Charlie Kaufman, follows the story of Clementine (Winslet) who undergoes a dangerous procedure to erase the painful memories of her ex-boyfriend Joel (Carrey) from her mind.
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When Joel finds out that his former girlfriend is going through with the procedure, he decides to undergo the same surgery and slowly forgets the woman that he once loved.
If you've still not seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), you can check out the trailer below:
The flick won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay while Winslet also received a Best Actress nomination for her performance.
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What made the film special was Gondry’s decision to minimise the use of CGI for more practical special effects.
For instance, when Winslet's character was filmed popping up in different rooms, the director thought of the idea to install trick doors so the actor could quickly run between each room, as reported by Variety.
However, this technique didn't always materialise on set.
For one scene, both Carrey and Winslet visit Joel’s babyhood memory of being bathed in the sink.
The acting duo were then told to sit in a giant tub for several hours.
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Winslet actually fainted on set and her co-lead was left fuming by the decision to stay in the tub for so long.
"People’s nerves get frayed," Carrey told the outlet in 2019.
"Michel was going, ‘Shoot, shoot!’ and she was going, ‘I’m nauseous'.
"And I got angry because she was not feeling well. So yeah, Michel and I had words."
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Gondry also explained how he thought the actor was leaning towards a fist fight.
The director asked Carrey: "Are you going to punch me in the face?"
This was seemingly not the last time the pair had a disagreement on set.
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“One of the last times Jim yelled at me, I started to yell back and said ‘Jim, if you yell at me, I don’t like you anymore. And if I don’t like you, I can’t direct you’,” Gondry said.
After filming had finished Carrey joked: “Michel and I had a fist fight in the street.”
15 years on, the pair reunited in 2018 for the Showtime series Kidding, which was cancelled after two seasons in 2020.
Featured Image Credit: Steve Granitz/FilmMagic/Focus FeaturesTopics: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Celebrity, TV and Film