The Band Jim Carrey Refused to Work With — And the Role He Couldn’t Bear to Revisit
OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Actors popping up in music videos is nothing new. Christopher Walken danced through Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice,” Robert Downey Jr. brooded his way through Elton John’s “I Want Love,” and Scarlett Johansson played the romantic foil in Justin Timberlake’s “What Goes Around… Comes Around.” But when Jim Carrey was offered the chance to star in a music video for a song that topped the Billboard Adult Alternative Songs chart, he didn’t just turn it down — he couldn’t even consider it.
The offer came in 1998, at the height of Carrey’s box office reign. Fresh off a five-year run that saw The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, The Truman Show, and Liar Liar rake in hundreds of millions worldwide, Carrey was one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars. Yet that same winter, he took on his most radical role to date — one that would leave him questioning his very identity.
Losing Himself to Andy Kaufman
Carrey had signed on to play comedian Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon, a biopic directed by Miloš Forman. Known for his uncompromising commitment to roles, Carrey pushed further than ever before, adopting full method immersion. He never broke character, whether he was channeling Kaufman himself or Kaufman’s abrasive alter-ego, Tony Clifton.
On set, he antagonized professional wrestler Jerry “The King” Lawler, barricaded co-star Danny DeVito in a trailer, and even held a two-hour meeting with Ron Howard — entirely in character. The experience, later chronicled in the 2017 documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, was as exhausting for those around him as it was transformative for Carrey.
“Jim Carrey didn’t exist at that time,” he reflected in the documentary. “The true author of the project is Andy… I feel like Andy made the film.”
By the time shooting wrapped, the actor admitted his behavior had been “psychotic.” The psychological toll was even greater: “I didn’t know who I was anymore… I didn’t know what my politics were. I couldn’t remember what I was about.”
The Offer He Couldn’t Accept
So when R.E.M., whose song “The Great Beyond” appeared on the Man on the Moon soundtrack, invited Carrey to reprise Kaufman in their music video, the answer was a firm no.
“At that time, I just didn’t want to be Andy anymore,” Carrey explained. “They wanted me to be Andy in the video, and I just didn’t want to go back… Once I left Andy, and I tried to figure out what the hell I am again, I just didn’t want to be Andy anymore.”
It wasn’t disdain for the band. It was self-preservation. After months of living as someone else, Carrey needed distance — a chance to reclaim himself.
Freedom and the Cost of Disappearing
Yet, paradoxically, Carrey admitted he had enjoyed parts of the experience. For as long as he was Andy, he’d been spared the depression that often haunted him. “You felt so good when you were being Andy because you were free from yourself,” he said. “You were on vacation from Jim Carrey.”
That “vacation” came at a price. Returning to his own life meant facing the same heartbreaks and struggles he had left behind. In the end, Carrey’s refusal to step back into Kaufman’s skin for R.E.M. was less about rejecting a project than about protecting his fragile sense of self.
More than 25 years later, The Great Beyond remains one of R.E.M.’s most beloved tracks — and a reminder of the one time Jim Carrey walked away from a role, not because it wasn’t worth doing, but because it would have meant losing himself all over again.
If you want, I can also prepare a sidebar timeline of Carrey’s key career moments from Ace Ventura through Man on the Moon to Jim & Andy, to visually track how this role became such a psychological turning point. Would you like me to make that?
