Jim Carrey
Carrey at Adam's House in February 2007.
Birth name	James Eugene Carrey
Born	January 17 1962 (1962--) (age 45) Newmarket, Ontario, Canada
Years active	1981-Present
Spouse(s)	Melissa Womer (1987-1995) Lauren Holly (1996-1997) Jenny Mcarthy current
Influences	Dick Van Dyke, Jerry Lewis, Mel Brooks, Bill Cosby
Awards Golden Globe Awards Best Film Actor (Drama) 1999 The Truman Show Best Film Actor (Musical or Comedy) 2000 Man on the Moon

James Eugene Carrey (born January 17, 1962) is a Canadian actor and comedian. He is known for his manic, slapstick performances in comedy films such as , , The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, Me, Myself & Irene, The Cable Guy, Liar Liar and Bruce Almighty. Carrey has also achieved Golden Globes for his dramatic roles in The Truman Show and Man on the Moon. But despite the fact he has put on many performances which were praised by both critics and fans alike, he has never been nominated for an Academy Award.

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.

Start in 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. 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 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 , 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 . Both films were successful at the box office and earned Carrey multi-million-dollar paychecks.

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 the villainous character 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 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]

Personal life

Carrey has been married twice, first to former actress and Comedy Store waitress Melissa Womer, with whom he has a daughter, Jane Erin Carrey (b. September 1987). 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, Jim dated his massage therapist Tiffany O. Silver. In December 2005, Carrey began dating actress/model Jenny McCarthy. The pair have since denied engagement rumors.^[10] In the May 2006 issue of Playboy Magazine (pg 48), it was mentioned that he has dated model Anine Bing.

Jim Carrey is a vegetarian.^[11]

Carrey supports the West London football club Brentford FC after visiting a Hollywood cafe owned by a Brentford supporter.

He attended a Presbyterian Church with his family in the early 1990s.^[12] Carrey really does have a chipped tooth; for his role in Dumb and Dumber, he simply removed the tooth cap.^[13] He owns a Gulfstream Aerospace Gulfstream V and also drives a Saleen S7 (the car his Bruce Almighty character received using godlike powers was his own). Carrey is a big fan of the death metal band Cannibal Corpse^[14], who did a cameo in Ace Ventura. He is a huge fan of professional wrestling and the cartoons Johnny Bravo, Spongebob Squarepants and Dave the Barbarian

Carrey received U.S. citizenship on October 7, 2004 and now maintains dual citizenship between the U.S. and his native Canada, where he has a star on Canada's Walk of Fame^[15] in Toronto since 1998. He went public about his bouts with depression in a November 2004 interview on 60 Minutes.^[16]

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
	''The Sex and Violence Family Hour (V)	Unknown
1984	Finders Keepers	Lane Bidlekoff	$1,467,396
	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
		Brad Peters
	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
	The Itsy Bitsy Spider	The Exterminator (voice)
1994		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	$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	Yes Man	Unknown
	A Christmas Carol	Scrooge, Ghosts
	I Love You Phillip Morris	Steven Jay Russell
2010	Ripley's Believe It or Not!	Robert Ripley
	Sober Buddies	Unknown

Other Appearances

• Carrey appeared in Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events Video Game- Count Olaf.
• Also showed up in Saturday Night Live- Jacuzzi Life Guard.
• Starting with the line "I want to tell you about a hero of mine, her name is Aung San Suu Kyi", Carrey appeared in a straight-to-YouTube video campaigning the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, the world's only detained Noble Peace Prize winner from Myanmar^[17][18]. His appeal to release Aung San Suu Kyi is highly welcomed by many Myanmars, both abroad and domestic.^[19]

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 () (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 () (Nominated)
• 1996 - Best Comedic Performance () (Won)
• 1996 - Best Male Performance () (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

References

External links

• Jim Carrey at the Internet Movie Database
• Jim Carrey at the Notable Names Database
• Carrey: Life Is Too Beautiful, a summary of a November 2004 60 Minutes interview with Carrey
• Jim Carrey Biography - Cinema.com
• Top 11 Jim Carrey Film Roles on Moviefone
• Jim Carrey - Call to Action on Burma and Aung San Suu Kyi