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Jim Carrey

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Jim Carrey
at the premiere of Horton Hears a Who!, 2008
Born
James Eugene Carrey
OccupationActor/Comedian
Years active1979 – present
Spouse(s)Melissa Womer
(1987-1995) (divorced)
Lauren Holly
(1996-1997) (divorced)

James Eugene "Jim" Carrey (born January 17, 1962) is a Canadian-American actor and stand-up comedian. Carrey is best known for his performances as multiple characters in the sketch comedy show In Living Color, as the title character in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, as lawyer Fletcher Reede in Liar Liar, and as the unlucky TV reporter Bruce Nolan in 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. His other roles include those in Hollywood blockbuster films such as The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Fun with Dick and Jane.

Over the span of his three-decade career he has won and been nominated for numerous awards, including a BAFTA nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as well as winning two Golden Globe Awards for his role in The Truman Show, and Man on the Moon. He also has a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.

Early life

Carrey was born in Newmarket, Ontario, the son of Kathleen (née Oram), a homemaker, and Percy Carrey, a musician and accountant.[1][2] He has three older siblings, John, Patricia, and Rita. The family was Catholic[3] and of part French Canadian ancestry (as the original surname was Carré).[4] After his family moved to Scarborough, Ontario when Carrey was 14 years old, he attended Blessed Trinity Catholic School, in North York, for two years, enrolled at Agincourt Collegiate Institute for another year, then briefly attended Northview Heights Secondary School, for the remainder of his high school career (altogether, he spent three years in Grade 10).

Carrey lived in Burlington, Ontario, for eight years and attended Aldershot High School, where he once opened for 80s new wave band Spoons. In a Hamilton Spectator interview (February 2007), Carrey remarked, "If my career in show business hadn't panned out I would probably be working today in Hamilton, Ontario at the Dofasco steel mill." When looking across the Burlington Bay toward Hamilton, he could see the mills and thought, "those were where the great jobs were."[5] At this point, he already had experience working in a science testing facility in Richmond Hill, Ontario.

Career

Comedy

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, who signed the young comedian to open Dangerfield's tour performances.

Carrey then turned his attention to the film and television industries, auditioning to be a cast member 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). Joel Schumacher had him audition for a role in D.C. Cab, though in the end, nothing ever came of it.[7] 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.[8]

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 an 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 cast member, whose unusual characters included masochistic, accident-prone safety inspector Fire Marshall Bill, and masculine female bodybuilder Vera de Milo.

Film

Carrey made his film debut in Rubberface (1983), which was released as Introducing...Janet. Later that year, he won the leading role in Damian Lee's Canadian skiing comedy Copper Mountain, which included his 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. Two years later, in 1985, 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 starring in the 1994 comedy Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, which premiered only months before In Living Color ended.

Ace Ventura was panned by critics, and earned Carrey a 1995 Golden Raspberry Award nomination as Worst New Star.[9] But the film was as embraced by fans as it was derided by critics. The Ventura character became a pop icon, and the film made Carrey a superstar. It was a huge commercial success, as were his two other starring roles from that year: The Mask and Dumb and Dumber. 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 paychecks.

Carrey earned $20 million for his next film, The Cable Guy (directed by Ben Stiller), a record sum for a comedy actor. The film did not do well at the box office or with critics, but Carrey quickly rebounded with the successful (and lighter) Liar Liar, a return to his trademark comedy style.

Carrey took a slight pay cut to play a more serious role to star in the critically-praised[10] science-fiction dramady 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.[11] 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, in which he deliberately ripped into Shandling's character.

In 1999, Carrey won the role of comedian Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon. 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 on its opening weekend and $90 million by the end of its domestic run.

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.

His performance in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in 2004 earned high praise from critics,[12][13][14] who again predicted that Carrey would receive an Oscar nomination; the film did win for Best Original Screenplay, and co-star Kate Winslet received an Oscar nomination for her performance. (Carrey was also nominated for a sixth Golden Globe for his performance).

In 2004, he played the villainous Count Olaf in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, which was based on the popular children's novels of the same name. In 2005, Carrey starred in a remake of Fun with Dick and Jane, playing Dick, a husband who becomes a bank robber after he loses his job.

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 the number 23, after finding a book about a man with the same obsession.

Carrey has stated that he finds the prospect of reprising a character to be considerably less enticing than taking on a new role.[15] The only time he has reprised a role was with Ace Ventura. (Sequels to Bruce Almighty, Dumb and Dumber, and The Mask have all been released without Carrey's involvement.)

Despite having a 20-year career with no Academy Award nominations, Jack Nicholson (who in the first 20 years of his career had five) has named Carrey the "Jack Nicholson" of the next generation.

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[16] (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.[citation needed]

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.[17] 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's 22-year-old daughter, Jane, is expecting her first child with rocker fiancé Alex Santana, who performs in the band Blood Money under the stage name Nitro.[18]

Carrey has a chipped tooth; for his role in Dumb and Dumber, he simply removed the tooth cap.

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, at his request for the band to be featured in the film.[20] 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[22] in Toronto since 1998.

He went public about his bouts with depression in a November 2004 interview on 60 Minutes.[23] Carrey has made calls to the public, by way of Internet videos, to try to bring attention to the political repression in Burma, especially of Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he describes as a personal hero.[24]

Together with Jenny McCarthy Carrey is a prominent spokesperson and activist for the Generation Rescue foundation.[25]

Filmography

Year Film Role Worldwide Box Office
1980 The Sex and Violence Family Hour Various Personalities
The All-Night Show Various Voices
1981 Rubberface (TV) Tony Moroni
1983 Copper Mountain (TV) Bobby Todd
All in Good Taste Ralph Parker
1984 Finders Keepers Lane Bidlekoff $1,467,396
The Duck Factory (TV) Skip Tarkenton
1985 Once Bitten Mark Kendall $4,025,657
1986 Peggy Sue Got Married Walter Getz $41,382,841
1988 The Dead Pool Johnny Squares $37,903,295
1989 Pink Cadillac Comedian $12,143,484
Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All (TV) Brad Peters
Earth Girls Are Easy Wiploc $3,916,303
1990 In Living Color (TV) Various Roles
1991 High Strung Death
1992 The Itsy Bitsy Spider The Exterminator (voice)
Doing Time on Maple Drive (TV) Tim Carter
1994 Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Ace Ventura $107,217,396
The Mask Stanley Ipkiss $343,900,730
Dumb and Dumber Lloyd Christmas $246,400,374
1995 Batman Forever Riddler/Edward Nygma $336,529,112
Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls Ace Ventura $212,400,533
1996 The Cable Guy Ernie "Chip" Douglas $102,825,706
1997 Liar Liar Fletcher Reede $302,710,615
1998 The Truman Show Truman Burbank $248,400,201
Simon Birch Adult Joe Wenteworth $18,253,415
1999 Man on the Moon Andy Kaufman/Tony Clifton $47,407,430
2000 Me, Myself & Irene Officer Charlie Baileygates/Hank $149,270,999
How the Grinch Stole Christmas The Grinch $345,141,403
2001 The Majestic Peter Appleton $37,306,000
2003 Bruce Almighty Bruce Nolan $485,044,995
Pecan Pie Man on Bed
2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Joel Barish $47.1 million
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Count Olaf $201,627,119
2005 Fun with Dick and Jane Dick Harper $202,250,000
2007 The Number 23 Walter Sparrow/Det. Fingerling $76,593,167
2008 Horton Hears a Who! Horton (voice) $297,133,947
Yes Man Carl Allen $225,990,976
2009 A Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge/ Ghost of Christmas Past/Ghost of Christmas Present/Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come $196,815,369
2010 I Love You Phillip Morris Steven Jay Russell
2011 Damn Yankees Mr. Applegate
2012 Ripley's Believe It or Not! Robert Ripley

Notable roles

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)

American Comedy Award

Screen Actors Guild Awards

  • 2000 - Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Man on the Moon) (Nominated)

BAFTA Awards

Satellite Awards

People's Choice Awards

  • 2001 - Favorite Motion Picture Star in a Comedy (Won)
  • 2005 - Favorite Funny Male Star (Won)
  • 2009 - Favorite Male Funny Star (Nominated)

MTV Movie Awards

Kid's Choice Awards

Teen Choice Awards

References

  1. ^ "USA WEEKEND Magazine". Usaweekend.com. 2003-05-25. Retrieved 2009-11-21.
  2. ^ "Jim Carrey Biography (1962-)". Filmreference.com. Retrieved 2009-11-21.
  3. ^ Puig, Claudia (2003-05-27). "Spiritual Carrey still mighty funny". Usatoday.Com. Retrieved 2009-11-21.
  4. ^ "Jim Carrey: The Joker Is Wild (2000)". Knelman, Martin. U.S.: Firefly Books Ltd. p. 8. ISBN 1-55209-535-5 (U.S.). Retrieved 2006-03-24.
  5. ^ Holt, Jim (2007-02-26), "It's all in the numbers: Jim Carrey could be at Dofasco if Hollywood hadn't worked out.", The Hamilton Spectator, pp. Go14
  6. ^ "Up, up goes a new comic star," Bruce Blackadar, Toronto Star, February 27, 1981, p. C1.
  7. ^ Batman Forever Commentary by director Joel Schumacher. Warner Brothers. 2005. {{cite AV media}}: |format= requires |url= (help)
  8. ^ "?". The Duck Factory. Retrieved 2006-03-24.
  9. ^ Razzie Awards: 1995
  10. ^ "The Truman Show Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2009-11-21.
  11. ^ "Jim Carrey - Rotten Tomatoes Celebrity Profile". Rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved 2009-11-21.
  12. ^ CNN.com "the best, most mature and sharply focused performance ever from Jim Carrey"
  13. ^ Rolling Stone "Jim Carrey [...] has never done anything this deeply felt. [...] grounded and groundbreaking [performance by] Carrey"
  14. ^ Washington Post "[Carrey] rises to the challenge with ease, humor and depth of feeling"
  15. ^ JimCarreyOnline.com : "I'm getting the opportunity to do all these new and wonderful things. Why waste my life being repetitive? A lot of people do sequels. I think it's not as enticing as doing something new."
  16. ^ No Lie - Jim Carrey Will Be a Grandfather - Jim Carrey's 21-year-old daughter is expecting! Jul 10, 2009, Source: People.com
  17. ^ Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy Laugh Off Engagement Rumors
  18. ^ Gina DiNunno (10 July 2009). "Jim Carrey to Become a Grandfather". TVGuide.com. Retrieved 2009-07-10.
  19. ^ "Jim Carrey's Twisted Comedy". .sympatico.ca. Retrieved 2009-11-21.
  20. ^ a b Interview to Jack Owens of Cannibal Corpse
  21. ^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000120/bio#ba
  22. ^ Canada's Walk of Fame: Jim Carrey, comedian, actor[dead link‍]
  23. ^ "Famous People With Depression - Jim Carrey". Depression.about.com. 1962-01-17. Retrieved 2009-11-21.
  24. ^ "Jim Carrey - Burma Appeal II by hrac - Revver Online Video Sharing Network". One.revver.com. Retrieved 2009-11-21.
  25. ^ Generation Rescue
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