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Hangin' With Archives
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Jim and SteveHear a Whoby Lynn B
In case your childhood was deprived of whimsical Dr. Seuss stories, Horton the elephant hears a cry for help coming from a tiny dust speck floating through the air. An entire civilization of Whos exist on the particle and only Horton can hear them. The heroic pachyderm goes on a quest to protect his tiny charges despite the skeptical protests of everyone in his jungle home. We were lucky enough to sit down with Jim and Steve recently in Beverly Hills on a casual weekend. Jim was in green tee and hoodie and Steve, ever the dapper dresser, in black shirt and brown leather jacket. After Jim executed a funny stretch, we were off discussing “Horton”, the weird animation process, how we [including famous people] are all just specks in a huge universe and all about the guys’ upcoming projects…. AGW: We know that although kids are read the Seuss books early on, the messages transcend age and demographic. Do you guys think so? Steve: Wow! Does it transcend? You are being very heady right off the bat [we laugh]. I don't think as a 5 or 6 year old we think about how things transcend anything, you just think about how it resonates [with you]. Kids don't understand the metaphors or the richness to it, but at the same time it resonates. There is something very specific about the theme that I think even a little kid can understand. That is that everyone deserves an equal footing in life. I think that's just a very basic tenant of being a creature of the world. Jim: That was a real good answer. I think, as far as kids go, the thing that attracts them to this is not the deeper concepts involved. It's really just the fact that Seuss's creativity was so incredible. He was such an original. If you give a kid a character that he's never seen before, in a world that he's never seen before, they will completely lose themselves in an imaginary space. At the same time they are getting all of those wonderful lessons. In my own personal experience, I've always been drawn to things that are different. I felt odd anyway, as a child, so anything odd I went 'Oh, those are my people.' I dig those people. There is something very original about the whole thing and that's what draws kids. Myself, I listened to them on tape so I didn't really see the pictures. AGW: Jim, what made you “odd” when you were a kid? Jim: I was the baby of the family. I guess my father was strange. He was funny and strange and I looked at him and went 'Wow, everybody is looking at my Dad. Everybody is laughing at my Dad.' And I just immediately kind of wanted to be that, so I locked myself in my room. When all the other kids were outside playing, I was devising ways to make myself appear to be different somehow. AGW: How limiting is it to only act with your voice? Steve: I think there is a freedom within the limitations. When you are given a structure, and you can do anything within that structure, there is something freeing to that. Sometimes you just don't know where to focus, at least for me. Really the animators do the heavy lifting, we provide as much as we can vocally, but then you see it and you see where they have taken whatever you have done vocally. It's remarkable. Jim: That is the great thing about this, you are surrounded by artists who are just as creative or moreso than you are, and I love being handled by nerds. Just to spew something out and have somebody put wings on it, it's fantastic, and a wonderful thing. AGW: Jim, you’ve turned down a few animated roles. How did you decide to do this one? Jim: What they do is they come to your house and they say 'This is going to be the simplest process in the world.' They lie to you, completely lie to you. Anybody who they are doing that to in the future might want to take note. It is hard work. It's not as simple as they make it sound. It is a half a day here and there, whenever you get a free moment you are going in to do it. The fact is that they come to you and they really don't have a script. They have an overall idea of where they want to go, but they go 'Here's eight pages. What do you think we should do with it?' You sit in a room, you jam, you come up with ideas, and you come up with lines. It's an amazing process. You think 'How is this ever going to get to the end and make sense?' Steve: It's also a huge leap of faith too. There you are, you don't know how anything you do will sync up with what anyone else is doing. It's all based on how the director sees it and cues it. He's the one threading all of these performances together. You give him a thousand different variations on a scene, and then he tracks it with the rest of the performances. AGW: Guys, go back in the wayback machine and tell me if there was a time in your lives, before the fame, when you felt like a speck.
Steve: If I think about it too much my mind will explode. It's essentially the same thing. We are all so, so tiny in the big picture. It depends on what picture you are looking at. In the really big picture we are infinitesimal, but... Jim: [getting a far off look in his eye] I have always felt that there were worlds, within worlds, within worlds. There is somewhere on my right arm, inside of a cell, there is some kind of world happening. There are people sitting there going 'Oh, I hope we don't destroy ourselves. He could swing that arm, hit it against a tree and we're gone!’ Steve: That's why we are paralyzed. That's why now, after doing this movie, I can hardly move. Essentially I'm afraid I will be crushing tiny universes wherever I go. Even in your laughter, the saliva is coming out of your mouth... Jim: There are worlds there! Steve: You are killing worlds! Jim: It's Armageddon in my pants right now! I swear to God, it's Armageddon! AGW: [we are really cracking up with laughter at this point. Okay... get it together] Uh, Jim did you get a chance to talk to Seuss’s widow about doing the part? You’ve played The Grinch, another beloved Seuss character. Jim: Every once in a while I say 'Hi.' But we don't talk a lot. I was honored that when they brought it to her, the first thing out of her mouth, she said 'Can you get Jim Carrey?' I feel really honored that she wants me to be a part of a legacy. I just feel wonderful that two of these projects have come my way. I'm such a fan of Dr. Seuss, so it's a great thing. Steve: [looking sad] I've never spoken to her. AGW: Do you ever pinch yourselves and wonder how you became legends? Steve: All day, everyday. I owe a lot to Jim frankly, for any of my success, because essentially the first movie I was ever in was Bruce Almighty. I never got auditions for movies, and it was one of the first I had ever gotten. Jim: He stole the whole [freaking] movie. Steve: [carrying on] I remember watching Liar Liar and thinking ‘that looks like the most fun you could possibly have’. Being on set, at the outtakes, I thought 'Man, that just looks like a party.' In my wildest dreams I didn't think I would ever be able to be a part of that, then a couple of years later I was, so yes. I'm still pinching myself. Jim: He did an amazing job. He's done that ever since, it's incredible to watch him. AGW: But what about your success? Jim: It's hard to have a perspective on it from inside myself. I just feel like I could be working at a factory again in a month, loading trucks where I started out. I don't have a perspective on it, it's just one thing to the next. It's trying to do work and trying to have fun with what is in front of me. I just try to do work and have fun doing it, and hopefully that translates. I do watch other people like Steve, and I can sit back and go 'Wow, man that guy is good.' It's all your perspective. AGW: Any more Seuss stories you would like to bring to life? Steve: I don't know, I would love to do 'Green Eggs and Ham'. I think I could do a lot with it. It does sound ridiculous to even talk about it, doesn't it? Maybe 'Green Eggs and Ham' is a blockbuster of the future. You never know. AGW: Jim, how do you become an elephant and Steve, how do you do a Who? Jim: Myself, I thought of peanuts on my breath. I figured I would have the sweet smell of peanuts on breath all the time. I thought I wanted to be the type of an elephant that didn't realize he was enormous and bulky. He was light as a feather, as he puts it, he was a dancer. He was not bigger than anybody else. That is where I wanted to come from with that character. Maybe it's an inferiority complex, I don't know, but he doesn't feel like he's bigger. He could do a lot of damage if he wanted to, but he doesn't feel like he has that power. He feels equal to everybody. Steve: Imagine a world where nothing goes wrong ever. Everything is always happy, everyone always gets along, and everything is always good. The sun is always shining. Then, imagine that something goes wrong. How would you react to that? That's kind of what being a Who is like, especially in this story. It's a perfect world, and nothing ever goes wrong, then, it's suddenly turned upside down. AGW: Is there a little extra message in the film? In a post 9/11 world; is it trying to say that others have a right to exist as well? Steve: I think that is valid. I think it's always hard when you talk about a post 9/11 world. I honestly think that the theme of this movie would have resonated before that, had it never happened, but perhaps because of that, people’s general awareness's are higher. Jim: There is a butterfly effect to everything we do. I believe even to raise your voice has an effect that goes far beyond the room you are raising your voice in. Everything has an effect that way. We have seen it politically through the last few decades. The fact is that every time we go and try to mess with things and squash somebody, then we create somebody else [like Osama Bin Laden]. The act of fighting these fears we have creates more fear, and creates more aggression. AGW: Heavy… and sadly true. Steve, are you working again on “The Office” now that the strike is over? Steve: Yes. The first episode involves a dinner party that Michael throws. I think it may be the funniest episode of the season so far. Everything before the strike was great. In terms of Michael and Jan, I would say the storm cloud is moving. Jim: Such a great show, an amazing show. It's really one of the greats. AGW: Horton’s sort of “motto” is “people are people, no matter how small”. Do you guys have a motto? Jim: Always turn your wheel in the direction of a skid. That has been my motto all along. That's really what I do. Steve: Be sure to use a washcloth because that is a good way to exfoliate. Jim: Brush your dentist twice a day, visit your toothbrush twice a year. AGW: Okay, we walked into that one! Steve, you have some action work coming up in Get Smart. And Jim, you are playing just about everybody including Scrooge in A Chirstmas Carol. Talk about that. Steve: It’s incredibly fun. Being an action star is all I ever hoped to be. I ultimately knew I would be an action star. Jim: He's packing right now! There is a lump back here, and I see it. [He leans around as if looking for a gun]. Steve: That's right, I have one stuck in my boot as well. It was just fun. Again, it was ridiculous. I'm hanging from wires off of buildings, underneath planes, and it was fun. I would do it again in a second. Jim: And Ebenezer is such a great thing for me because again I get to play all kinds of different roles in the film. First of all the [motion capture] process is so fascinating. You are literally in an empty warehouse with cameras around you. You have maybe a frame of a fireplace, or something like that, and then you rehearse. Then they go 'Can we take this away?' and you are sitting on a chair. You have to create the entire world in your head. Not only that, but you are working with other actors and you are in this ridiculous capture suit with balls all over it, and a hat with pinchers that come down with cameras in your face right here. AGW: Sounds really hard. Jim: The real work of it is transcending the lack of stimuli, and this stimulus that is right in your face. You have to transcend all of it and create the reality of the piece. Also, its kind of a classical version of A Christmas Carol so I'm playing Ebenezer Scrooge at four different ages. There are a lot of vocal things, a lot of physical things, I have to do. Not to mention doing the accents properly, the English, Irish accents. I'm also playing past, present, and future ghosts. There is a lot of really wonderful work in it, and challenge. I want it to fly in the UK. I want it to be good and I want them to go 'Yeah, that's for real.' We were very true to the book. It's an incredible film. AGW: There are great lessons in that story. Jim: If you are lucky at some point in your life to have that kind of 'Christmas Carol' moment, I certainly have. Things were going south and I had the opportunity to see how horrible things could have gotten without them actually going there. I can't get into specifics but I had my ‘ghost of Christmas future’ at a certain point in my life. I went 'Oh wow. Okay, I have to really start caring about the right things here.' It's just a fantastic story. It's beautiful literature. It’s out in 2009. Pictures courtesy of and copyright Todd Williamson, WireImage.com, and 20th Century Fox |
 
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These
guys are two of our favorite funnymen. Steve Carell and Jim Carrey are
talented actors who can work in all genres but it’s Jim’s
rubber-faced comedy that has endeared him to millions. Steve’s everyman
persona and sweet nature make you want to protect him. As the voices of
a kindly elephant (Jim voices Horton) and the Mayor of Whoville (Steve’s
voice role) in the animated film Horton Hears a Who, the duo
brings the world of the beloved Dr. Seuss story to wonderful life, instilling
in all of us a message of tolerance and the celebration of diversity.
Hey, according to Horton “a person’s a person...no matter
how small”. 
Jim:
I know I'm a speck, absolutely. That's honestly how I feel. I'm an interesting
speck, but I think that's how I've always thought, in those terms. How
can you look at the sky at night and not feel like you are a speck somewhere?
I saw a picture on the Discovery Channel one time of the Earth from Mars
and you can hardly find it, it was a speck. We truly are a speck. So,
there are all different levels of that, and it's kind of where you are
at, it's really true.