Jamie Kennedy talks Son of the Mask
Jamie Kennedy to some is still the guy from the Scream films that was yelling at the camera about the rules that all horror movies have, others know him as the zany prankster always wearing different disguises on his hit televisions show The Jamie Kennedy Experiment. What Jamie Kennedy really is though, is a fan of playing other people. "I love pretending to be someone else." In the Son of the Mask, he plays Tim Avery, struggling cartoonist, whose about to become a real life version of the characters he draws. In my interview with him, he talks about the new Mask, and how rather than try and impersonate Jim Carey's version, he wanted to pay homage to him, and put forward a more family friendly Mask, and call it his own.
Did you get a free game boy for playing it in the movie?
Jamie Kennedy: No, I do have one though, I have one.
Do you play with it that intensely like you did in the movie?
Jamie Kennedy: No, we shot that scene towards the end of the movie and by the end of the movie I had all this energy and I was like amped from the whole experience, psycho, so that energy was carried over.
Did you enjoy playing the mask?
Jamie Kennedy: The make up was really cool, it was actually the best make up I've ever had on my face, but you know, I wore it 6 days in a row, and after that it gets rough, the only thing is that I had ears in this one, and Jim Carey didn't in the first one, so they would like press against my real ears and cut the circulation so I would have to like rub my ears a bit after having on the makeup to get the blood flowing again.
Can your skin breath under that mask?
Jamie Kennedy: Um, yea, but after when you take it off your skin gets exfoliated so, I would hate taking it off all the time.
Somebody said you were real good about all the make up because of all the years you've been doing it on your show.
Jamie Kennedy: Yeah.
Did you think that's why you were patient?
Jamie Kennedy: I think you just have to love what you do, I love pretending to be someone else, you know? Putting on prosthetics is cool for me, I love it, sure it's hard, but I'm very comfortable, I wanted to pull off the look. I had a really good make up artist, using good materials, so it feels amazing.
How much input did you give towards the look?
Jamie Kennedy: I had an input a little, they designed it, at one point the chin looked like Jay Leno, and then we had like 5 different hair-styles.
Did you want to avoid doing a Carey impersonation, or did you want to acknowledge it? How did you approach it?
Jamie Kennedy: I felt we had to avoid it, but at the same time pay homage to him. So it was a hard line to cross. I'm not really in the mask to much, but when I am those are real nerve racking scenes. I've done many voices before, like 10 different voices, but we finally settled on the one I did which like a bob Eubanks, you know, ultimate father, you know? Like "hello son", Jim Carey was more like wild, "SMOKING!!" so there are certain things you cant avoid doing an impression, you know? Like with the eyes and teeth, but the other stuff like you know the voice was more my stuff.
So you weren't trying to top Carey's version?
Jamie Kennedy: Never! Never! How you going to do that? I was only doing this cause it was suppose to be different you know? This is like a family movie, it's more about the baby and the dog and Alan (Cumming) and I'm just the straight man in the middle.
Did you improvise at all in the mask?
Jamie Kennedy: I had specific marks I had to hit you know? But in terms of the relationship with Traylor in the movie (his wife) I improvised the relationship and the things we did there.
What were the difficult aspects of filming this film?
Jamie Kennedy: Well at first it was amazing working with this dog, but it was weird because you would be looking and acting to this dog and you'd have the trainer behind you yelling "Come on boy! Come on boy! You can do it boy!" And I would like look back and be like, I cant do this right man, and he would look and be like, I'm sorry man, I'll keep it down, and then we'd do the scene again and this time he would be behind me pantomiming to the dog and, it was just weird man. Then with this baby, it was an amazing baby but they would only work 6 hour days in Australia, those little bastards, so I would be like holding the baby and this baby would walk right up to me, and take it out of my hands, and be like "baby's done, 6 o'clock, baby's done", and we would then have to finish the scene with like a robot baby, and then sometimes I'd be acting with the baby and it would start crying and I'd be like what happened? I thought we were friend. So it was crazy man.
Did filming go by fast?
Jamie Kennedy: No, we were there for 5 months, so it's like another life, but as far as the filming process, we only did like 2 takes at the most. So after the first day I would prepare ahead of time and just do 1 to 2 takes.
How did you come up with your character?
Jamie Kennedy: My character, Tim, is basically me on a bad day. I actually did though; base his gradual going crazy on the shining. So it's kind of a slow process you know?
Will there be any deleted scenes that you did on the DVD?
Jamie Kennedy: Tons, tons! There so much stuff between me and Traylor, its just hysterical stuff, you know? Husband and wife stuff.
Dont't forget to also check out: Son of the Mask