The ghost of late comedian Andy Kaufman invades Jim Carrey.
when comedian Andy Kaufman died of lung cancer at age 35 in 1984, he had completely changed the face of comedy.
Before him, very simply, a comedian told a joke, and the audience laughed. When Kaufman burst onto national television on the first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975, he blurred that distinction. Instead of telling a joke, he embodied it.

Kaufman, the performer, would disappear into Elvis, Foreign Man (who would later become Latka Gravas on the TV show, Taxi), the "transgender" wrestler, or the obnoxious lounge singer, Tony Clifton.

He so effectively erased the boundaries between the real and the unreal, that many even thought he faked his own death.
Kaufman's impact on the art of comedy was so deeply felt that it's hard to imagine, without him, the crafty cleverness of Steve Martin, the morphing wonders of Jim Carrey and "reality"-based television shows like The Larry Sanders Show.
Man on the Moon is both a biography of Kaufman and a tribute to a legacy that has  enveloped popular culture.
                                      
Since Kaufman has had such a profound influence on many contemporary performers, the casting call for the film resembled an all-star revue. But the director, Milos Forman (Amadeus), made every actor audition on videotape. "I told everybody, 'Look, I don't dare
cast this role blind,'" Forman recollects. "I need to see how you see yourself as Andy Kaufman in his different personas." With that criteria, the competition came down to Edward Norton and Jim Carrey, whose cachet at the box office sealed the deal.

Fortunately, in Man on the Moon, Carrey isn't the whole show. Danny DeVito (L.A. Confidential) plays Kaufman's very sane manager, George Shapiro and Courtney Love is Kaufman's girlfriend, Lynne Margulies. Man on the Moon also features Carol Kane and Judd Hirsch, his former costars from Taxi.

To make a movie about a great talent, who was the sum of the masks he wore, can be a daunting task. But Milos Forman was up to the challenge. "I saw Andy in 1976 and I was on the floor laughing, and I didn't know why," Forman recalls. "But don't try to explain Andy Kaufman. It's futile." Like Andy Kaufman, Milos Forman, with Man on the Moon, believes in flying in the face of futility.

                                                                                                              Kevin Courrier