Jim Carrey

Biography

His first stage appearance ended in failure. In the spring or summer of 1977, fifteen-year-old Jim Carrey walked onto the stage of Yuk Yuk's, a comedy club in Toronto, in a polyester suit chosen by his mother, who believed that this was how people dressed on Dean Martin's show. His impressions fell flat, and for two years he did not perform.

Carrey was born on 17 January 1962 in Newmarket, Ontario, into a Catholic family: his father, Percy Carrey, was an accountant and musician, and his mother, Kathleen, was born Oram. His ancestors on his mother's side were Irish and Scottish, on his father's side French Canadian; the surname had once been Carré. The family had a hard time, moving from Scarborough to Burlington and back, and for a while living in a Volkswagen van. When his father found a job at the Titan Wheels factory in Scarborough, the whole family took on cleaning and security work there. Carrey left school on his sixteenth birthday, but the stage drew him. As a child he pulled faces in front of the mirror, and at ten he wrote to Carol Burnett about his impressions and was delighted even by a form reply. In 2007 he said that without show business he would probably be working at the Dofasco steel mill in Hamilton.

In 1979 he returned to Yuk Yuk's with a polished act, got his first paid evening at the Hay Loft club, and soon moved from open-mic nights to regular bookings. In February 1981 the Toronto Star wrote about him as “a genuine star coming to life”. That year he also played his first acting role, in the television film “Introducing... Janet” (later released on video as “Rubberface”). The comedian Rodney Dangerfield noticed him and took him on to open his shows. In early 1983 Carrey went to Hollywood and performed at the Comedy Store, a Los Angeles club. Saturday Night Live, NBC's sketch comedy show, turned him down three times, in 1980, 1985 and 1986; he hosted it only in 1996.

What followed was a decade of auditions and trials. In 1984 he played the lead in the sitcom “The Duck Factory”, which was cancelled after a few months. In 1985 came “Once Bitten”, his first starring film role; critics noticed him, though the reviews were poor. He realised that impressions alone would not carry a career, and began adding observational humour and invented characters to his act, to the displeasure of club owners who wanted celebrities. From 1990 to 1994 he was a regular on the sketch show “In Living Color” on the Fox network, and that work opened the way into major films.

In 1994 came “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective”, “The Mask” and “Dumb and Dumber”. “The Mask” grossed about $351 million worldwide and brought Carrey his first Golden Globe nomination. “Batman Forever” and the second “Ace Ventura” followed (both 1995). For his next film, “The Cable Guy” (1996), he became the first comic actor to be paid an upfront salary of $20 million. Critics received the role of the menacing cable installer coldly, but “Liar Liar” (1997) pleased them.

Then came the dramas. For “The Truman Show” (1998) Carrey accepted a smaller fee; he won his first Golden Globe for the role of Truman Burbank, and a second for Andy Kaufman in Milos Forman's “Man on the Moon” (1999). On set he asked to be called Andy, a story later told in the documentary “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond” (2017). In Michel Gondry's “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2004) he played Joel Barish: he was nominated for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe, but won neither. Between the dramas came comedies: “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (2000), “Bruce Almighty” (2003), which earned about $484 million, “Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events” (2004) and “Yes Man” (2008). He voiced the elephant in the animated film “Horton Hears a Who!” (2008) and several roles in Robert Zemeckis's “A Christmas Carol” (2009).

In 2004 he was inducted into the Canadian Walk of Fame, and in October of that year he received American citizenship, remaining a citizen of Canada as well.

He had been drawing for a long time. In 2011 his painting “Nothing to See Here” was shown at an exhibition in Palm Springs, and from August 2017 he published political cartoons. In 2018 his work was shown at the Outsider Art Fair, and a debate followed over whether a Hollywood actor could count as an outsider artist. The exhibition “IndigNation” opened in Los Angeles on 23 October 2018. In February 2021 he announced that he would no longer produce political drawings. In April 2022 he created his first art NFT on the SuperRare platform, based on a painting of a sunflower.

From 2018 Carrey appeared in the series “Kidding” (as the children's television host Jeff Pickles; a Golden Globe nomination), and in 2020 he played Doctor Robotnik in “Sonic the Hedgehog”. In the spring of 2022 he spoke of leaving films, but in 2024 he returned to the role in the third part. In February 2026 the French Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma gave him an Honorary César; he gave his speech of thanks in French and spoke of his family's French roots.