Director Tom Shadyac has made some of the most popular Hollywood comedies of the past ten years, as well as one of the most critically-reviled. He's worked with Eddie Murphy on "The Nutty Professor", Robin Williams on "Patch Adams" (cue hisses from film critics), and Jim Carrey on both "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" and "Liar Liar". Now he's reteamed with Carrey for the God-bothering comedy "Bruce Almighty".
As well as "Bruce Almighty", you've worked with Jim Carrey on "Ace Ventura" and "Liar Liar". Have you developed a shorthand in your working relationship?
Sure. Jim and I can speak without even speaking, really. We're friends and we hang out, and I've worked half my professional life with the guy. So yes, we do have a shorthand. We have to, because he never lets me finish a sentence. But thankfully it's always funny when he finishes it for me.
What about Morgan Freeman? Jim said that he gave you a pretty hard time on the set, that he went out of his way to intimidate you. Is that right?
Oh, man. Yes, but I knew he was joking. I would tell him, "Morgan, you are just ****ing with me in every way, in every possible way!" But he's so solid. He's like a rock, and if you have any nervous energy around Morgan Freeman at all, it just magnifies.
Is that heavy aura the reason you thought he'd make the perfect God?
Morgan has a great sense of humour, this disarming sense of humour about him, and our guy had to be funny. He couldn't just have that presence, and strength, and power. He had to be funny, because the whole movie really is about how God has this sense of humour. I mean, look at who he created.
There's quite a large and very vocal Christian community in America. Did they protest about your representation of God in this film?
There were no protests, so to speak, but there's always that certain section which is very zealous and rigid, and not even open to the idea of exploring God in storytelling at all. Very early on, I actually heard about a radio show in the middle of the country where the talk show host was saying, "This film is blasphemous!", and he hadn't even seen it yet. Well, virtually all of his callers who got through to that radio show said they did not find the concept blasphemous. It is not a movie that makes fun of God, it is God having fun with us; with our tendencies to be self-indulgent and thinking that we know what we want in our lives.
Didn't some Christian groups have a problem with Jennifer Aniston and Jim Carrey portraying an unmarried couple who live together?
Yes. The religious press got on me and said, "Tom, we love this movie, but how can we recommend this to our audience when there's a couple that lives together in sin?" Well, that morning I'd just finished re-reading St Augustine's Confessions, and I urged their audience not to read this book because it starts with a guy who is sleeping with a lot of women and drinking a lot of booze, and very much an MTV guy of his generation. But God does not start with perfect characters and, as storytellers, neither do we. You can't tell stories with perfect characters because there's nothing left to tell. If they're perfect, then they're not human. So we start with people that are just like you and I - people that are on a journey.
