Men In Black’s Director Had To Stop Tommy Lee Jones From Trying Bo Be Funny

The 1997 science-fiction comedy “Men in Black” is something of a miracle, a hilarious family film that manages to appeal to almost everyone. It was also a bit of a challenge to make, and not just because the filmmakers had to figure out how to bring the movie’s aliens to life. Originally the studio wanted Chris O’Donnell, not Will Smith, for the role of Agent J, and it was director Barry Sonnenfeld’s wife who came up with the idea for Smith to star. Smith wasn’t so keen, however, and executive producer Steven Spielberg sent a helicopter to get him. Once Smith was set, the next big problem was that his co-star, the Academy Award-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones, could apparently be a bit of a challenge to work with. 

In his new memoir, “Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time: True Stories from a Career in Hollywood,” Sonnenfeld shares an anecdote about trying to explain to Jones that he needed to play the straight man to Smith’s more outsized comedic personality. It seems like a no-brainer now, but at the time the deeply serious actor thought he had to bring the laughs, not realizing that his seriousness was actually much funnier than if he actively tried to be funny.

Jones had already earned a bit of a reputation making “Men in Black” before it even began filming, including a feud with screenwriter Ed Solomon that led to the writer getting fired and rehired. These behind-the-scenes headaches aside, he also didn’t quite seem to understand the nature of his role — at least not initially. Sonnenfeld explains that on the first day of filming, Smith and Jones were doing a scene where they’re interrogating an alien and Jones thought he had to over-emphasize the fact that he was asking the guy to put up his flippers. Terrified that Jones would bite his head off (he had already fired his hairdresser), Sonnenfeld cautiously tried to direct Jones: 

“See, Tommy, for you, this is all in a day’s work. Very Gl. Very Government Issue. Agent K doesn’t think ‘All your flippers’ is funny. You’re just saying it the same way you’re saying, ‘Put up your hands.’ It’s just normal police procedure. That’s what makes it funny for the audience.”

Throughout the course of filming, Sonnenfeld had to keep Jones from trying to be funny, and he said that the actor’s agent was upset that he believed only Smith would get laughs. Sonnenfeld explained the importance of the “straight man” in comedy duos, telling him, “The comedy is in the reaction shot.” Sonnenfeld turned out to be spot-on, of course, because some of the funniest parts of the movie are just Jones’s stone-cold serious face in the fact of so much ridiculousness.

Sonnenfeld said that in the end, everything worked out, as Jones credited him during press junkets for his comedic skills, saying that the best way to become funny is to “stand next to Will Smith and do whatever Barry Sonnenfeld tells you to do.” 

Honestly, that’s not terrible advice in general if you’re an actor, because Sonnenfeld mostly hits home runs (and when he doesn’t, it’s not necessarily his fault, like the doomed-from-the-start “Wild Wild West”). While the magic wouldn’t last forever and Sonnenfeld had some regrets about the making of “Men in Black II,” he did return for the third film as well, “Men in Black 3,” so either the money or the experience was good enough to do it thrice. Nothing could quite recapture the magic of the first film, but at least Sonnenfeld didn’t have to worry about telling Tommy Lee Jones to take it down a notch after that first movie.