'Men in Black' director says Tommy Lee Jones struggled to feel comfortable playing a serious character opposite Will Smith

• "Men in Black" director Barry Sonnenfeld said Tommy Lee Jones was never comfortable being serious for his role.
• "It took a long time for him to feel comfortable with it. I don't think he ever did," he said.

Despite the countless serious roles Tommy Lee Jones has done throughout his career, it seems he had trouble having to be that way in the "Men in Black" franchise.

"MiB" director Barry Sonnenfeld told Insider that it took a while for Jones to come to terms with the fact that he was the straight man to Will Smith's funny-man character, Agent J.

"It took a long time for him to feel comfortable with it. I don't think he ever did," Sonnenfeld said of Jones. "I don't think he understood that comedy. In fact, I really sat on his performance. I never wanted him to acknowledge anything Will said was funny or was a joke."

Sonnenfeld said he was the one who came to the studio with the idea of having Jones play the gruff Agent K, after Clint Eastwood, who was the producers' first choice, passed on the role.

However, that almost backfired on the director. When Jones got involved, he didn't agree to the role until major rewrites were made and he was given director approval.

So, Sonnenfeld said he was taken off the movie until finally he and Jones had a meeting, and the actor signed off on him.

Sonnenfeld said that both Jones and Smith took a liking to one another right away.

"They both thought each other was funny," he said. "For me, personally, the very first time we shot with both of them together is that pawn-shop scene with Jack Je ebs (played by Tony Shalhoub) and they both were perfect."

"Will ad-libbed that last line of, "Yeah, I'm gonna come back about those Rolexes." Right away I knew they would work out well," Sonnenfeld said.

But, despite Sonnenfeld pushing Jones to play K super-seriously, he knew it would lead to laughs.

"I got a call from Tommy's agent about two weeks into the movie and he said, 'I don't want Tommy to be funny, I only want Will to be funny,'" Sonnenfeld recalled. "And I promised him that when Tommy sees this movie, Tommy will realize he's as funny as Will Smith is. Every comedy team needs a straight man."

The rest is history. Largely due to the dynamic between Jones and Smith, "Men in Black," became, at the time, the biggest box-office hit ever for Sony (until a little franchise called "Spider-Man" came along). The actors also teamed for two sequels.