Another year, another yuletide, and another remake of the classic Charles Dickens epic, A Christmas Carol.
The Muppets have had a go, the headmistress of St Trinian’s, and now God is playing skinflint Scrooge, who eventually sees the error of his penny-pinching ways.
Well, God as in Jim Carrey, who played the Almighty in another crazy film.
This time, Christmas Carol has been created in a new style of animation giving it a new twist, and allows Carrey to pull even more wacky faces.
A Christmas Carol was penned by Dickens in 1843. Well, churned out in a matter of weeks according to legend and is the first and by far the most famous Christmas book from the writer, who spent much of his life in Kent.
He died at his home at Gad’s Hill Place, Higham, in 1870 aged 58, and had also also lived in Rochester.
This new Christmas Carol was shot by director Robert Zemeckis using a groundbreaking 3D motion system where Carrey gets to play Scrooge, as well as all three ghosts.
The film took a huge $31 million on its opening weekend in America.
It also stars British actors Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, and Bob Hoskins.
Carrey said: “There were a lot of challenging aspects to the film, but once I got into it I found the process worked well and Bob (Zemeckis) made things very easy for me.”
He said the British accents were difficult. “There are regional accents which are hard. I had a wonderful voice coach to help me – but I am still waiting for the response from the UK, from the British Isles.”
He had help with the voices from another star in the film, Cary Elwes, great, great, great, great nephew of John Elwes, an MP who Dickens used for the Scrooge character.
Carrey said: “He was actually the template for the character. He was so cheap and mean that he would wear the same clothes all the time even when they were in tatters, he wore a wig that he found in the garbage and he wouldn’t buy new game until he had eaten all the meat that he had, even if it was rancid he would finish it.
“This was the man Dickens based Scrooge on.”
Of all the previous movie Scrooges, Carrey picked out Alastair Sim in 1951 as the best.
He said: “Well of course his Scrooge was my favourite. He was the one I remember from when I was a kid and I would watch that film every year.
“He was amazing, his face was born to play that part, his whole being had an ‘acid reflux’ bitterness to it. It was splendid to watch. I wanted to have that feeling to my Scrooge.
“It has always been a story that allows us to refocus on the important things in life, where the joy is.
“Kids like to be scared a little bit. I watched some of the scarier parts of the film with Evan (his girlfriend Jenny McCarthy’s son) a couple of days ago and during the more intense parts I whispered ‘it’s just pretend’ but he loved it.
“Kids love being scared. Being scared is part of our psyche, it’s interesting.”
POSTED: 14/11/2009 12:00:00
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