James Eugene Carrey (born January 17, 1962) is a Canadian-American A-list
film actor and comedian. He is known for his manic, slapstick performances in
comedy films such as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Ace Ventura: When
Nature Calls, The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, Me, Myself & Irene,
The Cable Guy, Liar Liar and Bruce Almighty. Carrey has
also achieved critical success in dramatic roles in films such as The Truman
Show, Man on the Moon, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
But despite the fact that he has done many performances which were praised by
both critics and fans alike, and has won more MTV awards than any other
celebrity in MTV history for his work, he has never been nominated for an
Academy Award.
Jim Carrey -
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Biography
Early life
Jim Carrey was born in Newmarket, Ontario to Kathleen Oram, and Percy Carrey,
a mortician.[1][2]
He has three older siblings, John, Patricia and Rita. The family was Catholic[3]
and has some French Canadian ancestry (as the original surname was Carré).[4]
After the family moved to Scarborough when Carrey was 14, he attended Blessed
Trinity Catholic School in North York for two years, before enrolling at
Agincourt Collegiate Institute, Scarborough's oldest high school.
Carrey lived in Burlington, Ontario for eight years and attended Aldershot
High School. In a Hamilton Spectator interview (February 2007), Carrey
remarks that "if his career in show business hadn't panned out he would probably
be working today in the Circus industry or dealing crack in the streets of
Ontario." When looking across the Burlington Bay towards Hamilton he could see
the mills and thought "those were where the great jobs were." He already had
experience working in a science testing facility Richmond Hill, Ontario and was
somewhat resigned to that career path.[5]
In 1990, Carrey's breakthrough came when he landed a starring comedic role on
the hit television show In Living Color.
In 1979, under the management of Leatrice Spevack, Carrey started doing
stand-up comedy at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, where he rose to become a headliner in
February 1981, shortly after his 19th birthday. One reviewer in the Toronto
Star raved that Carrey was "a genuine star coming to life."[6]
In the early 1980s, Carrey moved to Los Angeles and started working at The
Comedy Store, where he was noticed by comedian Rodney Dangerfield. Dangerfield
liked Carrey's performance so much that he signed Carrey to open Dangerfield's
tour performances.
Carrey then turned his attention to the film and television industries,
auditioning to be a castmember for 1980–1981 season of NBC's Saturday Night
Live. Carrey was not selected for the position (although he did host the
show in May 1996). His first lead role on television was Skip Tarkenton, a young
animation producer on NBC's short-lived The Duck Factory, airing from
April 12, 1984 to July 11, 1984, and offering a behind-the-scenes look at the
crew that produced a children's cartoon.[7]
Carrey continued working in smaller film and television roles, which led to a
friendship with fellow comedian Damon Wayans, who co-starred with Carrey as a
fellow extraterrestrial in 1989's Earth Girls are Easy. When Wayans'
brother Keenen began developing a sketch comedy show for Fox called In Living
Color, Carrey was hired as a castmember, whose unusual characters included
masochistic safety inspector Fire Marshall Bill (whose dangerous "safety tips"
were the target of censors and watchdog groups who saw the character as a
dangerous example for naive younger viewers ), and masculine female bodybuilder Vera de Milo. His onscreen
antics caught the eye of Hollywood in a big way.
Film career
Carrey made his film debut in Rubberface (1983) (in a minor role),
which was known as 'Introducing...Janet' at the time of release. Later that
year, he won the leading role in Damian Lee's Canadian skiing comedy Copper
Mountain, which included his amusing impersonation of Sammy Davis Jr.. Since
the film had a less than one hour runtime consisting largely of musical
performances by Rita Coolidge and Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins, it was not considered
a genuine feature film. A few years later, Carrey saw his first major starring
role in the dark comedy Once Bitten in the role of Mark Kendall, a teen
virgin pursued by a 400-year old female vampire (played by Lauren Hutton). After
supporting roles in films such as Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Earth
Girls are Easy (1988) and The Dead Pool (1988) Carrey did not
experience true stardom until being cast to star in the 1994 comedy Ace
Ventura: Pet Detective, which premiered only months before In Living
Color ended its run. The film was panned by critics, and earned Carrey a
1995 Golden Raspberry Award nomination as Worst New Star.[8]
However, the film was a huge commercial success, as were his two other
starring roles, in The Mask and Dumb and Dumber, both released the
same year.
In 1995, Carrey appeared as the Riddler in Batman Forever and reprised
his role as Ace Ventura in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. Both films
were successful at the box office and earned Carrey multi-million-dollar
pay checks.
Carrey made headlines when it was revealed that he earned twenty million
dollars for his next film, The Cable Guy
(directed by Ben Stiller), a record sum for a comedy actor. The attention drawn
to the paycheck, coupled with some negative reviews, and the film's dark
sensibility, all contributed to the film's mediocre earnings,
although the film is regarded as sadly underrated by a significant number of
people. Carrey quickly rebounded with the successful (and lighter) Liar Liar,
a return to his trademark comedy style.
Carrey took a chance to play a more serious role (and a slight paycut) to
star in The Truman Show (1998), a change of pace that led to forecasts of
Academy Award nominations. Although the movie was nominated for three other
awards, Carrey did not personally receive a nomination, leading him to joke that
"it's an honor just to be nominated...oh no," during his appearance on the Oscar
telecast. However, Carrey did win a Golden Globe (for Best Actor in a Drama) and
an MTV Movie Award (for Best Male Performance). That same year, Carrey appeared
as a fictionalized version of himself on the final episode of Garry Shandling's
The Larry Sanders Show, making an impression by ripping deliberately into
Shandling's character.
In 1999, Carrey won the role of comedian Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon.
Several actors, including Edward Norton, were interested in the role, but
Carrey's audition, including an act with the bongo drums Kaufman used in his
performances, helped him to be cast.
(Coincidentally, Carrey was born thirteen years to the day after Kaufman).
Despite critical acclaim, he was not nominated for an Academy Award, but again
won a Best Actor Golden Globe award for the second consecutive year.
In 2000, Carrey reteamed with the Farrelly Brothers (who had directed him in
Dumb and Dumber) in their comedy, Me, Myself & Irene, about a
state trooper with multiple personalities who romances a woman played by Renée
Zellweger. The film grossed $24 million dollars on its opening weekend and $90
million by the end of its domestic run. Carrey has since continued to appear in
successful comedies in addition to more dramatic roles. His performance in
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) earned high praise from
critics, who again incorrectly predicted that Carrey would receive an Oscar
nomination, although the film did win for Best Original Screenplay, and co-star
Kate Winslet received a nomination for her performance. (Carrey was also
nominated for a sixth Golden Globe for this performance).
In 2003, Carrey reteamed with Tom Shadyac for the financially successful
comedy Bruce Almighty. Earning over $242 million in the U.S. and over
$484 million worldwide, this film became the second highest grossing live-action
comedy of all time.
In 2004, he played Count Olaf in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate
Events, which was based on the popular children's novels. In 2005, Carrey
starred in a remake of Fun with Dick and Jane, playing Dick, a husband
who loses his job after his company goes bankrupt.
In 2007, Carrey reunited with Joel Schumacher, director of Batman Forever,
for The Number 23, a psychological thriller co-starring Virginia Madsen
and Danny Huston. In the film, Carrey plays a man who becomes obsessed with an
obscure book he believes is somehow based on his life.
Carrey has stated that he finds the prospect of reprising a character to be
considerably less enticing than taking on a new role,[9]
and fans say he rarely turns down roles because he enjoys trying new things.
Personal life
Carrey has been married twice, first to former actor and Comedy Store
waitress Melissa Womer, with whom he has a daughter, Jane Erin Carrey (b.
September 6, 1987 in Los Angeles County). They were married on March 28, 1987,
and were officially divorced in late 1995. After his separation from Womer in
1994, Carrey began dating his Dumb and Dumber co-star Lauren Holly. They
were married on September 23, 1996; the marriage lasted less than a year. Carrey
dated actress Renée Zellweger, whom he met on the set of Me, Myself & Irene,
but their relationship ended in a broken engagement in December 2000. During
2004, Carrey dated his massage therapist Tiffany O. Silver.
In the May 2006 issue of Playboy Magazine (p. 48), it was mentioned
that he has dated model Anine Bing. In December 2005, Carrey began dating
actress/model Jenny McCarthy. The pair have since denied engagement rumors.[14]
They did not make their relationship public until June 2006. She announced on
The Ellen DeGeneres Show on April 2, 2008 that the two are now living
together, but have no plans to marry, as they do not need a "piece of paper."
Carrey has a chipped tooth; for his role in Dumb and Dumber, he simply
removed the tooth cap.
Carrey is a vegetarian.[15][16][17][18]
He attended a Presbyterian Church with his family in the early 1990s.[19]
He is a fan of death metal band Cannibal Corpse,[20][21]
who made a cameo appearance in Ace Ventura, whom he requested feature in
the movie.[22]
Carrey received U.S. citizenship on October 7, 2004, and now maintains dual
citizenship of the U.S. and his native Canada, where he has had a star on
Canada's Walk of Fame[23] in
Toronto since 1998.
He went public about his bouts with depression in a November 2004 interview
on 60 Minutes.[24] Carrey
has made calls to the public, by way of Internet videos, to try to bring
attention to the political suppression in Burma, especially of Nobel Prize
winner Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he describes as a hero of his.[2
Filmography
Year
Title
Role
North American Box Office
1981
Rubberface (TV)
Tony Moroni
1982
Copper Mountain (TV)
Bobby Todd
1983
All in Good Taste
Ralph Parker
1984
Finders Keepers
Lane Bidlekoff
$1,467,396
1984
The Duck Factory (TV-Series)
Skip Tarkenton
1985
Once Bitten
Mark Kendall
$1,212,601
1986
Peggy Sue Got Married
Walter Getz
$41,382,841
1988
The Dead Pool
Johnny Squares
$37,903,295
1989
Pink Cadillac (film)
Comedian
$12,143,484
1989
Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All (TV)
Brad Peters
1989
Earth Girls Are Easy
Wiploc
$3,916,303
1990
In Living Color (TV-Series)
Various Roles
1991
High Strung
Death
1992
Doing Time on Maple Drive (TV)
Tim Carter
1992
The Itsy Bitsy Spider
The Exterminator (voice)
1994
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Ace Ventura
$72,217,396
The Mask
Stanley Ipkiss
$119,938,730
Dumb and Dumber
Lloyd Christmas
$127,175,374
1995
Batman Forever
Riddler/Edward Nygma
$184,031,112
Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
Ace Ventura
$108,385,533
1996
The Cable Guy
The Cable Guy
$60,240,295
1997
Liar Liar
Fletcher Reede
$181,410,615
1998
The Truman Show
Truman Burbank
$125,618,201
Simon Birch
Adult Joe Wenteworth
$18,253,415
1999
Man on the Moon
Andy Kaufman/Tony Clifton
$34,607,430
2000
Me, Myself & Irene
Officer Charlie Baileygates/Hank
$90,570,999
How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
The Grinch
$260,044,825
2001
The Majestic
Peter Appleton
$27,807,266
2003
Bruce Almighty
Bruce Nolan
$242,829,261
2004
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Joel Barish
$34,400,301
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate
Events
Count Olaf
$118,634,549
2005
Fun with Dick and Jane
Dick Harper
$110,332,737
2007
The Number 23
Walter Sparrow/Fingerling
$35,193,167
2008
Horton Hears a Who!
Horton (voice)
2009
Ripley's Believe It or Not
Robert Ripley
A Christmas Carol
Scrooge, Ghosts
I Love You Phillip Morris
Steven Jay Russell
Sober Buddies
Unknown
Yes Man
Unknown
Other Appearances
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events Video Game- Count Olaf
Saturday Night Live- Jacuzzi Life Guard
Awards and nominations
Golden Globe Awards
1995 - Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy,
The Mask (Nominated)
1998 - Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy,
Liar Liar (Nominated)
1999 - Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama, The
Truman Show (Won)
2000 - Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy,
Man on the Moon (Won)
2001 - Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy,
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Nominated)
2005 - Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy,
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Nominated)
Screen Actors Guild Awards
2000 - Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Man on the Moon
(Nominated)
People's Choice Awards
2001 - Favorite Motion Picture Star in a Comedy (Won)
2005 - Favorite Funny Male Star (Won)
MTV Movie Awards
1994 - Best Comedic Performance (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective)
(Nominated)
1995 - Best On-Screen Duo (Dumb and Dumber) (Nominated)
1995 - Best Dance Sequence (The Mask) (Nominated)
1995 - Best Comedic Performance (The Mask) (Nominated)
1995 - Best Kiss with Lauren Holly (Dumb and Dumber) (Won)
1995 - Best Comedic Performance (Dumb and Dumber) (Won)
1996 - Best Villain (Batman Forever) (Nominated)
1996 - Best Kiss with Sophie Okonedo (Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls)
(Nominated)
1996 - Best Comedic Performance (Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls)
(Won)
1996 - Best Male Performance (Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls)
(Nominated)
1997 - Best Fight with Matthew Broderick (The Cable Guy) (Nominated)
1997 - Best Villain (The Cable Guy) (Won)
1997 - Best Comedic Performance (The Cable Guy) (Won)
1998 - Best Comedic Performance (Liar Liar) (Won)
1999 - Best Male Performance (The Truman Show) (Won)
2000 - Best Male Performance (Man on the Moon) (Nominated)
2001 - Best Comedic Performance (Me, Myself, & Irene) (Nominated)
2001 - Best Villain (How the Grinch Stole Christmas) (Won)
2004 - Best Kiss with Jennifer Aniston (Bruce Almighty) (Nominated)
2004 - Best Comedic Performance (Bruce Almighty) (Nominated)
2005 - Best Villain (Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events)
(Nominated)
2006 - MTV Generation Award
Trivia
When Carrey's father died, he wrote himself a check for 20 million dollars.
After the movie, "The Cable Guy" Carrey was paid 20 million dollars and Carrey
cashed the check.
Carrey was one of the runner-ups to play Willy Wonka in Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory, but lost to Johnny Depp.
Carrey was originally given the role as Dr. Evil in the Austin Power's
series but turned it down for scheduled conflicts with Liar Liar.
Jim Carrey owns Andy Kaufman's bongo drums and used the drums during his try
outs for Andy Kaufman in the movie, Man on the Moon which Carrey won the part.
In 2006, Carrey wasn't in a movie because he "wanted to get away from the
fans and relax".
Carrey refuses to star in sequels, although he reprised his role in Ace
Ventura: When Nature Calls. He didn't appear in Son of the Mask,
Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd or Evan Almighty and has not
signed on to appear in Ace Ventura Jr., starring Josh Flitter.
In the original Ace Ventura movie, Carrey requested that his favorite band
of the time, Cannibal Corpse, play live for the scene where he goes to his
friend Woodstock for help.