The most popular film comedian of the 1990s and today, Jim Carrey went from a relatively unknown player in 80s genre films like “Once Bitten” and “Earth Girls Are Easy” to one of the most bankable stars in the world. Famous for his unique facial expressions and his incredibly intense physicality, after ten years in the spotlight Carrey still has the world rolling in the aisles with his unpredictable and hilarious performances.
Carrey was born in Newmarket, Ontario on January 17, 1962, and has been a self-defined comedian since his youth, even giving stand-up routines to his classmates at the Agincourt Collegiate Institute in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough. His parents had a hard time financially when Carrey was young, and for a brief time they lived out of a Volkswagen van on a relative’s front lawn. Carrey dropped out of high school at 16 to perform in local comedy clubs, and moved to L.A. a year later where he grabbed the attention of famed comedian Rodney Dangerfield, who made the young comic his opening act. The talented youngster became friends with Damon Wayans on the set of “Earth Girls Are Easy” in 1989, which led to Carrey being cast in the Wayans brothers’ popular sketch show “In Living Color”. Carrey made a name for himself on the show, especially with his bizarrely sadistic character Fire Marshall Bill.
The comedian’s big break came in 1994 with two unexpectedly popular film roles in “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” and “The Mask”. Both films were critically reviled yet extremely successful. Late in the same year Carrey received an impressive $7 million for “Dumb and Dumber”, another huge success for the actor and his co-star Jeff Daniels. Carrey’s winning streak continued in 1995 with the sequel “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls” and his appropriately over-the-top
performance as The Riddler in Joel Schumacher’s campy “Batman Forever”.
His rise to fame was swift, and by 1996 Carrey was making $20 million per picture, a jaw-dropping fee for a comedian. The hugely publicized salary hike was accompanied by one of Carrey’s only failures to date, the Ben Stiller-directed “The Cable Guy”. However, Carrey quickly returned to familiar ground with “Liar Liar”, a goofy slapstick comedy that surpassed the success of his previous efforts. “Liar Liar” briefly ended Carrey’s career as a lovable goofball, with 1998’s “The Truman Show” finding the actor in a more dramatic role. Peter Weir’s beautiful and touching film was a box office success, and critics finally gave Carrey the praise he deserved with some calling it one of the finest Hollywood films of the decade. Carrey continued with another dramatic role in Milos Forman’s biopic of late comedian Andy Kaufman, “Man on the Moon”. Carrey earned more rave reviews for his performance.
Carrey returned to slapstick with the Farrelly Brothers’ 2000 comedy “Me, Myself & Irene”, and he briefly dated his co-star Renée Zellweger. The same year Carrey starred in the title role of Ron Howard’s enormously successful “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. After another mega-hit comedy, 2003’s “Bruce Almighty”, the actor gave one of his greatest performances to date in the award-winning “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, which has since become a major cult hit.
Carrey recently appeared in the hit comedy “Fun with Dick and Jane” and will appear alongside Virginia Madsen in the thriller “The Number 23” later this year.