Kennedy & Cumming on Son of the Mask

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Kennedy & Cumming on Son of the Mask

Source:Andrew Weil

February 18, 2005

It's been over over ten years since Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz starred in the hit comic book adaptation The Mask, and now New Line has brought Son of the Mask to the big screen. ComingSoon.net talked to stars Jamie Kennedy and Alan Cumming about their roles in the action-comedy.

Kennedy talked a bit about what it was like wearing the mask. "It's cool, it was actually one of the best make-ups I've ever had. It was really subtle to your face, and it really stuck and you forget you're wearing it. But I wore it one time six days in a row, and by then your skin looks a little rough. The only thing is that I had ears in this one, and in the first one Jim didn't have ears. So the ears are glued to your ears, so your blood gets a little cut off, so you have itchy ears."

Did Kennedy have any pressure to avoid what Jim Carrey did? "I feel that we had to avoid but yet pay homage, so it was a really hard line to cross. I'm not really in the mask that much, so I wasn't too worried, but those were my most nerve-wracking scenes, and I had done many voices, I've done many incarnations, like ten different voices, and then we settled on the one we did, everyone decided. But it's kind of different than what he did, mine was more of a Bob Eubanks kind of ultimate father, you know, like, 'Hello, Ladies,' and Jim Carrey was more 'Smokin' wild. There are certain things I can't not do, like the (popping) eyes, and stuff like that, that's just part of the thing that was 'The Mask', but the other things, I tried to make my own, but there's always going to be that comparison."

Keeping the movie family-friendly presented its challenges. "We had done stuff in the movie that was risqué, but then in the post-process it kind of got more honed down to PG," adds Kennedy. "Yeah, it's different, I think my humor goes across the bar, and I think sometimes it's PG and it goes all the way to R. I think actually PG is harder and makes you become more clever, because you really have to think of something that can appeal to everyone and make them laugh, and if a good PG movie works it's great because of that. Anyone can be raunchy, but trying to come up on a twist on something is more clever. It's harder though."

Alan Cumming liked the variation in his character, Loki. "I like when I get to do things where there are a lot of different disguises. This movie I just did at Sundance called "Reefer Madness"... I did this film first and then went to do "Reefer Madness" and it's the same thing. I play one person within the film but I change into all these other people. I really like that. It's great and it obviously, your ego is very flattered when a big film company thinks you can do all these different things so it's nice. Also, I'm really intrigued by that whole Americana aspect of Looney Tunes cartoons. I really liked how much that played a part in the film. Then, when I went to see the director, all the storyboards were all around the building and so that was really… and, bizarrely, I'm now going out with a storyboard artist. Crazy how it happens. Kismet.

Just as he did for X2: X-Men United, Cumming had to undergo makeup sessions for the film. "Well, Nightcrawler was much worse because with this, when I get angry and have that green thing, the big prosthetic green thing which I hated… I only had to do that maybe five or six days. So, with Nightcrawler, I did it about forty times and it was like four hours and there weren't even any prosthetics on my face. It was just blue stuff and some tattoos. That was horrendous. Every moment of being on the set was like that. It was spraying stuff on your face. On this, when I had to be that character (Loki), they scheduled it so they could do something first in the day so I wouldn't have to come. On Nightcrawler, "X-Men 2", I still have the call sheet. It said 'Alan, pick-up 2:42 A.M'. That was my earliest pick-up.

Son of the Mask is now playing in theaters.

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