Word: karaszewski
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Oddballs are Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski's specialty. Five years ago, the screenwriting partners turned the life of cross-dressing B-movie director Ed Wood into a critically acclaimed film starring Johnny Depp. Next they wrote The People vs. Larry Flynt, a Capraesque portrait of the porno kingpin who won a First Amendment case before the Supreme Court, with Woody Harrelson in the title role. But even for these masters of the "anti-biopic," which they describe as a movie biography of someone who doesn't really deserve one, telling the story of comedian Andy Kaufman presented a challenge...
After months of tracking rumors and talking to Kaufman's family and friends, Alexander and Karaszewski had no clue who the real Andy was or how to structure a screenplay about him. It was only after one of Kaufman's girlfriends told them "there is no real Andy" that they found the key to their movie--the comic with multiple personalities was actually an invisible man. With that notion as their guide, they wrote Man on the Moon, a movie nearly as ambiguous as Kaufman himself...
...Carrey's uncanny portrayal of Kaufman may be the film's main draw, but it is Alexander and Karaszewski's re-creation of Kaufman's life, enigmatic and unapologetic, that best captures his anarchic spirit. "Sure, Jim's performance channeled the guy, but it's all part of a whole," explains Danny DeVito, who not only produced and co-stars in Man on the Moon but also appeared with Kaufman on Taxi. "Without a good script, everybody knows you'll wind up empty-handed. They nailed him, baby...
Though both writers are in their late 30s and happily married, each with two kids, they are a study in contrasts. In their spartan Beverly Hills office, the reed-thin Alexander works at his neatly organized desk while the beefy Karaszewski lies on a nearby sofa, surrounded by a mess of scattered papers, barking out lines of brash dialogue. Both are cocky yet self-deprecating and say that writing about offbeat subjects gives them a sense of creative liberation and inspiration. "We've embraced all these weird true stories because they've allowed us so much freedom," says Karaszewski...
...Carrey's performance as the artist constantly in question, don't attempt to answer that conundrum. Both merely present Kaufman with a dispassionate, ultimately hypnotizing objectivity. It is very possibly the best work each man has done, and assuredly the best thing screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski have done in a joint career devoted to odd fellows--Ed Wood, Larry Flynt--coolly observed...