Adds Grazer: “Once Dick and Jane lose everything, there’s this void in their life. They are forced to become resourceful again. When they start robbing, it becomes a sexual stimulant, because they suddenly feel alive again. They’re in the moment, rather than getting off on a future event like buying a fancy car or a talking toaster.”
The filmmakers gathered together a distinguished supporting cast to support Carrey and Leoni, including Alec Baldwin and Richard Jenkins (“Six Feet Under”).
It was the casting of Alec Baldwin that was key to convincingly depicting one of the story’s main plot points about the benign facade of corporate corruption. The filmmakers needed someone with the innate intelligence and gravitas to convincingly play the head of a billion dollar corporation, who could also hold the screen as a formidable adversary to Carrey’s character.
Notes Carrey: “Alex is one of those actors I’ve always wanted to work with. He brings a lot of creative energy to everything he does. He was one of the best hosts of ‘Saturday Night Live’ ever. I was a fan of his comedy chops way back when he did Miami Blues, which was a brilliantly twisted comedic performance. He is also very handsome and that sultry voice … oops!”
Of his character, Baldwin remarks, “There is something fascinating about a guy who is paid a guaranteed salary of a couple of million dollars — or in his mind, a couple of lousy million — who has an expense account that is so lavish he doesn’t ever spend any of his own money. He also gets an extraordinary stock option package. And then, on top of that, he decides it’s necessary to steal an extra couple of hundred million from the company. They have this artificially inflated lifestyle and it seems all perspective is lost. When I saw that Dennis Koslowski (former CEO of Tyco International) had a $6,000 umbrella stand, I knew we were going back to Roman times. It was just so vulgar.”
There are few people working on screen today, Baldwin notes, who have the ability to make this kind of comedy work, without it coming off as either silly or self-important. “Jim is the funniest person in the movie business, not only because he is ferociously smart and ceaselessly dedicated, but because his comedy has a big heart inside. There are other funny people, but some have a mean-spiritedness and their comedy comes at the expense of other people in the movie. With Jim there’s none of that. He’s such an original and inventive guy, he doesn’t need it.”
The other resonant theme in the film that was ripe for comic treatment, was how corporate greed has escalated to almost dizzying heights. According to the cover story of the Los Angeles Times Magazine’s October 17, 2004 issue entitled “The New Executive Class”: If ordinary workers’ annual pay had risen at the same rate as CEO pay since 1990, a report by the Institute for Policy Studies points out, they would be making $75,338 today—instead of the $26,899 they are taking home. Adjusted for inflation, that’s only marginally more than what they made in 1980.
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