Jamie Kennedy Dons "The Mask"

How does it feel to take over from mega-funny film dude Jim Carrey? The comic star of the Scream movies, Malibu's Most Wanted and his own quick-change "Jamie Kennedy Experiment" on T.V., was up to the task of creating an original wacky "masked" character in the sequel Son of the Mask. Jamie plays Tim Avery, a cartoonist dad whose baby son takes on the Mask's magic qualities.

Jamie is also a TV producer, co-creating and executive producing the new Fran Drescher series "Living with Fran" to premiere on the WB but no "suits" for this exec. He joined us to chat at Beverly Hills' 4 Seasons Hotel in simple black tee, jeans and a colorful plastic Son of the Mask bracelet. Jamie's off-beat sense of humor kept us laughing as he talked about working with babies, gawking at Aussie ladies on a topless beach, working with dogs and being part of some classic cartoon action.

TeenHollywood: Did you get a free Gameboy advance for putting one in this movie?

Jamie: No, I do have one though, I got one.

TeenHollywood: You are playing it so frantically fast at one point.

Jamie: You know why? Because we shot that scene at the end of the movie, and the whole movie I was like psycho, so that energy just carried over.

TeenHollywood: What was it like wearing the mask?

Jamie: 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. The ears are glued to your ears, so your blood gets a little cut off and you have itchy ears.

TeenHollywood: Can your skin breathe under that mask?

Jamie: Not really, but every time you'd take it off you'd get exfoliated, I'm serious. It makes your skin like – it peels off stuff. It wasn't too bad.

TeenHollywood: Somebody said that you were really good about the make up because of all the years that you worked on your show.

Jamie: I really think that it's something that you have to love to do. I love becoming someone else, so putting on prosthetics is great, I love it. Sure, there's times where it's hard and you're going (groans) but I'm very comfortable in that, I enjoy doing it, I want to pull off the look and it's not that big of a deal. I mean, I have really good make-up artists. The material they use is a really light silicone, so it feels amazing – it doesn't really hurt.

TeenHollywood: How much input did you have into the look?

Jamie: I loved the plastic hair. Me and Larry (Guterman, his director) and the designers designed it. At one point, my chin was really big, so it was really Jay Leno, I went (does quick impression of Jay). But the hair, we had like five different hairs, but we thought that one would be the coolest. It kind of had a Bob's Big Boy feel. It was like Bob's Big Boy, and the Green Giant's son.

TeenHollywood: Was it fun to do the dance number?

Jamie: The hardest thing I've ever done in my life, and that includes working at Domino's Pizza. I can dance. I have my own natural rhythm, but learning steps is one thing. Singing I can do, but try putting them together. I had my friend do some stand in for me. He's a really good dancer, and he does my stunts, so we mixed it up a little bit. I would love to do a musical, but I'd need time to rehearse.

TeenHollywood: Going into this, did you feel that you have to avoid doing anything like Jim did? How did you approach it?

Jamie: 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. I'd done like ten different voices, and then we settled on the one we did. My voice 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. There's always going to be that comparison.

TeenHollywood: But if they had been contemplating a revival of the same Jim Carrey character, would you have done the film?

Jamie: Never, never done that. How are you going to top that? I would never do that. That's why I wanted to do this, because this was different. This was a totally different thing, and it's a family movie, it's more about the baby and the dog, and then Alan (Cumming), and then me in the middle like a straight man, I look at myself as more like the Ben Stiller character, things are happening to him.

TeenHollywood: Did you have any concerns at all when they said they wanted to do The Mask sequel with you? Were you hesitant because of the legacy of Jim Carrey?

Jamie: Totally, yeah. I was like totally intimidated and all that stuff, and then that's when Larry decided to show me what the movie is, and he said it's going to be this kind of action, adventure, kind of mystical-ness, kind of like relationships with a Mr. Mom feel, and I thought, 'Okay, I can be really cool,' he said, 'You're only going to wear the mask twice,' and I thought, 'Okay.' And I think that probably some fans of the original might feel alienated, it's going to be compared, but there's going to be a lot of new fans. I mean, what are you going to do?

TeenHollywood: Did you enjoy having the feeling of the classic Warner Brothers cartoons in the film?

Jamie: That's what the spirit of the mask is. It brings out that in people. I love the fact we have "One Froggy Evening". Spielberg says that's the Citizen Kane of cartoons.

TeenHollywood: There are so many special effects in this movie. Are you able to improvise at all as the masked character when the effects have to be so planned out?

Jamie: That's a good question. You have to hit this huge mark, and a huge thing is going to happen, but I improvised more in the relationship scenes.

TeenHollywood: In many of the scenes you play straight man to a baby and a dog.

Jamie: There's a documentary there. You should see behind-the-scenes of this movie. The dog is amazing. It's really well trained, but the dog trainer is behind the scenes, so as you're doing your stuff, he's like, (in a southern accent) 'Come on Bear, hit that mark, eat that turkey boy.' 'Dude, I'm doing a scene,' – 'I'm sorry man.' So then he goes to do the scene again and he's like this (imitates him mouthing the words with frantic gestures but no voice).

TeenHollywood: So it was difficult working with the dog?

Jamie; The dog was cute, he was great. The only thing is the dog had these long nails, man. I would have to rehearse with the dog like an hour a day just to get him to know you and trust you. And he would jump up, no matter what with these nails, and I said, 'Steve, cut his nails,' and he'd go, 'Hell no man. He gets loose, and he's in the water, he's got no defenses, baby. He's got to have those nails.' He was great, our trainer was brilliant.

TeenHollywood: Was working with the baby just as hard?

Jamie: Well you're shooting with the baby but the baby has to wrap every day at six no matter what. So I'm doing a scene with the baby and the lady came and she's like(with Australian accent) 'Baby's done, six o'clock, baby's done.' I said, 'What are you, a baby cop?' She said, 'No, I'm a baby nurse, baby's done.' And go , 'Larry, what do you think?' 'I know, dude, there's something about these rules and babies,' so we had to go to the robot baby. So that was kind of challenging. Sometimes the baby would just cry in the middle of a (scene). He'd just break down, and I'm like, 'What happened? I thought we were friends.'

TeenHollywood: Were you envious of Alan Cumming's role as Loki because he got to be so many different characters?

Jamie: No, because I've done that. I think Alan is really talented, and I think that he can do anything, and he is an amazing actor. I thought he would be really good at it and he's someone I aspire to be. I feel like we're brothers in the sense that he likes to do chameleon things and I like to do it too. I really wanted to try something that I wasn't doing so that I could show people another side. Although in the movie I just end up going crazy anyway.

TeenHollywood: As the movie is all about family, have you thought about starting your own yet?

Jamie: No, that's why I took the movie because I was like – 'it's about a guy who's really scared to have a kid'. I mean, I'd be scared if I had a kid. I don't even have a goldfish. Babies are beautiful creatures, I'd hold the baby and I thought it was like a bomb, am I going to drop it? Someday I'm going to have kids, you've got to have your legacy to leave, but once you have a baby, to me, you got to have it, you've got to play with it, you've got to talk to it, you just can't put it away like your bike, you've got to be with it, feed it, it's a big job.

TeenHollywood: How would you ever teach a kid not to lie and play tricks on people, when it could just see your old show?

Jamie: I don't know. He'd probably take it one generation better, and lie and be crazier.

TeenHollywood: This must be the first movie you've had where there is so much CGI – was that hard or easy for you?

Jamie: I don't mind acting alone. I can just pretend something is there. That's what we do, we play pretend. But it was hard in the sense that it's such a technical thing where you have to just get your ego and throw it out, because it's not about you, it's not about your performance, that's secondary. It's about the effects. So once I learned that, in the first two days, I was like, 'Okay,' so I just gave over to it. And then it becomes really freeing, because it's not so scrutinizing a process. It's more about the effect and you're like, 'How am I doing?' 'You were great.' So I actually find it okay.

TeenHollywood: Did the filming go fast? Were there a lot of takes?

Jamie: We were there (Australia) for five months, so I felt I lived another life when I was there. It was bananas. But the actual filming process, we would only get like two or three takes sometimes, and then we had to move on because it was a 91 day schedule. I used to go on the set and have an idea of what I'm going to do. If it were up to me I'd do ten takes. I learned that this wasn't going to be like that.

TeenHollywood: Do you draw at all?

Jamie: No, but it looks good though, right? "My" hand.

TeenHollywood: What are your favorite cartoons?

Jamie: Cartoons or comics? My favorite comic book is Crumb. Crumb is brilliant, but that's not family. My favorite cartoons are probably the classic Warner Brothers and Johnny Quest, I really like that. I also grew up on the Smurfs, so what do I know?

TeenHollywood: Son of the Mask is a PG, not even a PG-13. You've done some pretty wild stuff. Was it difficult for you to tone it down?

Jamie: Well, actually no. I mean, 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, so – 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.

TeenHollywood: How did you come up with the character of Tim, is he based on anyone?

Jamie: Tim is just me on a bad day. I actually, kind of did base it on, this is going to sound weird, but The Shining, because Jack Nicholson in that movie has this slow progression (into madness). And he just slowly gets more crazy. So I just watched that movie, and I thought that would be a good way of going insane. And he does it so brilliantly.

TeenHollywood: You did a commentary for the DVD already?

Jamie: Yes, I did.

TeenHollywood: Have you done commentaries before?

Jamie: Tons, for my show and other movies and specials. Commentaries to me, the best is if they're honest and entertaining. I don't listen to a commentary because I want to watch the movie, so I only do behind-the-scenes stories of what was going on in that moment, who's doing what, who's fighting with who. That's what I think people like. And then Larry (the director) would be like 'Well, in this shot I used a split-diopter lens' and the whole time I'm just making fun of him going, 'Who cares about that Larry? Let's talk about what the Kraft Service lady was doing.' The whole DVD is us arguing.

TeenHollywood: Did you try surfing when you were in Australia shooting this?

Jamie: I couldn't surf because the waves were insane, like the tow it really pulls you. So I'd boogie-board and I actually was out there so far that I couldn't get back in. The current is crazy, so they are used to Americans doing that, and they tow you in.

TeenHollywood: Your costar Traylor, who plays your wife, said the men acted a little silly on the topless beach.

Jamie: Us? She said that? Like she was all used to it? Hey, it's not just a topless beach. It's like a topless boardwalk, a topless restaurant because it's all in the beach community. I mean you work with a dog and a baby and you're not getting a lot of action, so you might want to look at a topless woman. But you look and then they're, 'What the hell are you looking at, you gross American? Get out of here.' Put them away, put them away. So, yeah, we used to look. Sure I looked. You're damn right I did.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.