In Living Color, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Dumb and Dumber
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$150 Million
"My focus is to forget the pain of life. Forget the pain, mock the pain, reduce it. And laugh."
It's hard to imagine the 90s without Jim Carrey. Sort of the Gen X answer to Jerry Lewis, Carrey's no-holds-barred approach to slapstick made him an instant hit with viewers of all ages. As soon as you saw him playing the accident-prone and borderline-masochistic Fire Marshall Bill on sketch comedy show In Living Color (1990-94), it was pretty obvious that the next big comedy star had arrived. From there, Carrey launched a successful career as a dramatic actor in films like The Truman Show (1998), and has most recently been making a name for himself as a painter. But we'll always remember the over-the-top live-action-cartoon characters that started it all.
"One thing I hope I'll never be is drunk with my own power. And anybody who says I am will never work in this town again!"
The Canadian Comedian
Born January 17, 1962 in Newmarket, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto, to musician and accountant Percy Carrey, and mother Kathleen, Jim Carrey was a comedian almost from birth. At just ten years old he wrote to Carol Burnett hoping to win a spot on the show with his impressions. Though he only received a form letter in response, he was excited to have gotten any response at all. After graduating from Aldershot High School, he would have his father drive him to the famous Toronto comedy club Yuk Yuk's for his first real shot at stand-up.
It was a disaster. He got no reaction from the crowd, and considered seeking another line of work to support his struggling family. Fortunately, things got better at home and he was able to start taking stand-up more seriously. He improved his act and took another shot at comedy. This time he was an instant success, going from open-mic to paid shows to opening for Rodney Dangerfield. He would then make his way to Hollywood, further developing his skills at the Comedy Store and on An Evening at the Improv (1982). By 1983 he would feature on The Tonight Show (1983).
Although he wasn't quite famous just yet, he was already a success on the stand-up scene. He hoped to turn this into a career in film and television, but had difficult gaining traction at first. He auditioned for Saturday Night Live (1975-present) for the 1980-81 cast but was turned down. He landed the lead role on the sitcom The Duck Factory (1984), but the series was canceled after just thirteen episodes.
"Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interesting."
Seven years after his spot on The Tonight Show, Jim Carrey would finally get the job that would launch him towards star status, being cast as a regular on In Living Color (1990-94). A sort of edgier, more-urban Saturday Night Live, the show would become a who's-who of future comedy stars, including Keenan Ivory and Damon Wayans, David Alan Grier, Tommy Davidson, and Jamie Foxx.
As the series came to a close in 1994, Jim Carrey's movie career was just beginning to kick off, starting with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994). For the titular role, Jim Carrey was paid $350,000. This would be a fair amount for an unproven lead, but when the sequel Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995) was produced just one year later, Carrey earned $15 million for part. This should tell you just how quickly Carrey went from TV funnyman to one of the industry's leading movie stars.
1994 was indeed a busy year for the young star, leading not only Ace Ventura, but The Mask (1994) and Dumb and Dumber (1994) all in a short twelve-month stretch. Carrey's turn as the Riddler in Batman Forever (1995) was met with its share of criticism, including that of co-star Tommy Lee Jones, who famously confronted the young star to tell him "I cannot sanction your buffoonery!" but the film was a box offices hit and only helped to propel Jim Carrey's career even farther.
"I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I'm just trying to create a good one for myself."
Jim Carrey played a darker version of his hyperactive clown persona in The Cable Guy (1996) as a television-obsessed stalker. Again, critics took issue with the film's confusing tone and themes, and again, it was a success, earning $102 million worldwide. Carrey followed this with Liar Liar (1997), arguably his first "conventional" comedy film, before turning his attention to drama.
"I've arrived at the place if I'm not taking a career risk, I'm not happy. If I'm scared, then I know I'm being challenged."
Jim Carrey: Actor
By the late 90s, Jim Carrey had proven beyond any reasonable shadow of a doubt that he could carry a comedy film. Rather than simply repeat himself, Carrey chose to pursue more dramatically challenging work, beginning with The Truman Show (1998). Produced right as the reality television boom was coming into full swing, the movie featured Carrey as Truman Burbank, a man whose entire life has been lived on the city-sized set of a television show, surrounded by actors he believes to be his actual friends, family and neighbors, his every move recorded on hidden cameras. The film would be the first time Carrey really won the critics over, and he would follow this with Man on the Moon (1999), playing the lead in the Andy Kaufman biopic.
Of course, Carrey wasn't quite finished with the brand of spastic, goofy humor for which he had made his name, and in 2000 he would work again with Dumb and Dumber directors the Farrelly brothers on Me, Myself & Irene (2000). But by now, Carrey was hooked on the challenges brought by dramatic roles, and would deliver a landmark performance in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), a film that has gone down as one of the defining cult classics of its time.
Since then, Carrey has essentially been free to pursue whatever work suits him in the moment, from the light-hearted drama-romance of I Love You Phillip Morris (2009) to the voice of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (2009) and revisiting his classics with Dumb and Dumber To (2014). In recent years Carrey has created a Netflix docu-series with Jim & Andy (2017), signed on to play Doctor Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), and stayed busy with his paintings, which he shares on social media. From humble beginnings, Carrey has become one of those few lucky stars who's essentially free to just do whatever he likes, whenever he likes, be it comedy, drama, or just hanging around.
"There was a time when people said, 'Jim, if you keep on making faces, your face will freeze like that.' Now they just say, 'Pay him!'"
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