On the bill for the penultimate evening of the Tribeca Festival was Matthew Broderick and Judd Apatow and it was easy to assume that theyâd go down Cable Guy memory lane.
The movie, which was plotted as another big Jim Carrey tentpole back in 1996 post Ace Ventura, Dumb & Dumber and The Mask, saw the comedy star get paid a then astounding $20M for the Columbia Pictures movie. The Ben Stiller directed pic was a memorable one for Apatow, who produced it, as itâs where he met his wife Leslie Mann. The Cable Guy failed stateside, a stone in Carreyâs then box office tentpole streak only grossing $60M stateside. Broderick played the straight comedy guy in the movie to Carreyâs acerbic cable technician. Carrey was drawn to what was a hot script back in the â90s sparking a bidding war for $750K; the project much darker and weirder from his gross-out comedy fare.
âI remember the time thinking this is like Matthewâs first roles where he played an adult,â Apatow ribbed Broderick given his resume for playing younger dude parts.
But more so, Broderick remembered all the headlines about Carrey getting a big check for the movie. âI got a Swiss cheese sandwich,â joked the actor about his pay day.
Apatow shared, âJim went so hard at you every day. I remember one day, he was so in your face, every single take, you said to me in between takes, âI donât know how to react anymore! Iâve run out of reactions to this!’â
Said Broderick about Carreyâs $20M payday, âNice as it is to make all that, it put a lot of pressure on him in a way. It hadnât been that long since he was relatively unknown and suddenly heâs the highest paid, you gotta be the greatest genius ever, every minute, so I was sympathetic to the pressure he must have put on himself.â
âItâs a double-edged sword when you have that kind of success, I was sympathetic to that,â added Broderick.
âI donât know many people who had gotten that big, in that way, that fast,â said Apatow.
Other unforgettable moments for Apatow was how a torturous night shoot âan Ichabod Crane scene involving Carreyâs cable guy chasing Broderick downâ wound up with a lot of mud in both actorsâ eyes. Apatow remembered Broderick getting a torn cornea, but Broderick recalled Carrey going to the hospital. The sequence didnât make the final cut.
Then there was the time when there was a flub-up in the schedule during at day at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA. Broderick wound up waiting around on set all day in his trailer. Apatow remembered checking on the actor after 14 hours: âYou were so mad at me, you were like âdonât do that againâ. I always remember that. I never did it to anyone else again. You were the person who taught me to pay attention to wasting an actorâs time. So in my head, every time someone is not shooting for six hours, I think of the look in your eye that day and how scary it was. You donât want Bueller made at you, heâll cut you!â
Apatow shared a ten-minute cut of the film with then legendary manager Bernie Brillstein, who didnât find Carreyâs lisped character funny.
âI said, âWaddya think? Isnât he great? and heâs like âNooo!â Is he going to talk like that the whole movie?’â Apatow remembers Brillstein asking.
âI said itâs like the movie Neighbors with Belushi and Aykroyd, then Bernie goes âI know! I produced that movie! It was terrible! It didnât work!’â