James Eugene "Jim" Carrey (born January 17, 1962) is a Canadian American[2] actor, comedian, and producer. Carrey has received four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning two. Known for his highly energetic slapstick performances, he has been described as one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood.[3]
Carrey first gained recognition in 1990 after landing a recurring role in the sketch comedy In Living Color. His first leading roles in major productions came with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective(1994), Dumb and Dumber (1994), The Mask (1994), and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995). In 1997, he gave a critically acclaimed performance in Liar Liar, which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor. He then starred in The Truman Show (1998) and Man on the Moon (1999), with each garnering him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor.
In 2000, he gained further recognition for his portrayal of the The Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas and then, in 2003, Bruce Almighty. The following year he starred in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), for which he received another Golden Globe nomination in addition to a BAFTA Award nomination. He then starred in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), Fun with Dick and Jane (2005), Yes Man (2008) and A Christmas Carol (2009). More recently, he has starred in Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011) and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013).
In 2013, he appeared in Kick-Ass 2 as Colonel Stars and Stripes. Controversially, he retracted support for the movie two months prior to its release. He issued a statement via his Twitter account that, in light of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, "[N]ow in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence."[4]
Carrey has agreed to reprise his role as Lloyd Christmas in Dumb and Dumber To, which was produced in late 2013 and is scheduled for a November 2014 release.[5][6][7]
Contents
[show]Early life
James Eugene Carrey was born in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada,[1] the son of Kathleen (née Oram), a homemaker, and Percy Carrey (1927–1994), a musician and accountant.[8][9] He has three older siblings, John, Patricia, and Rita. He was raised Roman Catholic.[10][11] His mother was of French, Irish, and Scottish descent and his father was of French Canadian ancestry (the family's original surname was Carré).[12][13][14]
During an interview with James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio, Carrey stated, "My father was a musician who got a 'regular job' to support his children. When he lost his job that's when everything fell apart. We went from 'lower middle class' to 'poor'. We were living out of a van. I quit school at age 15 to begin working to help support my family as a janitor. I'd have a baseball bat on my janitor cart because I was so angry I just wanted to beat the heck out of something."[13][15] After his family moved to Scarborough, Ontario, 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. Jim never finished high school because he worked full-time to help his family survive the severe economic hardship, and also helped care for his mother who battled a severe, chronic illness.[16]
Carrey lived in Burlington, Ontario, for eight years, and attended Aldershot High School, where he once opened for 1980s 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."[17] At this point, he already had experience working in a science testing facility inRichmond Hill, Ontario.
Career
Early work
While Carrey was struggling to obtain work and make a name for himself, his father tried to help the young comedian put together a stage act, driving him to Toronto to debut at comedy clubYuk Yuk's.[18] Unfortunately, Carrey's impersonations bombed and this gave him doubts about his capabilities as a professional entertainer. His family's financial struggles made it difficult for them to support Carrey's ambitions. Eventually, the family's financial problems were resolved and they moved into a new home.[18] With more domestic stability, Carrey returned to the stage with a more polished act. In a short period of time, he went from open-mic nights to regular paid shows, building his reputation in the process. One reviewer in the Toronto Star raved that Carrey was "a genuine star coming to life".[19] Carrey was soon noticed by comedian Rodney Dangerfield, who signed the young comic to open his tour performances. Dangerfield eventually brought Carrey to Las Vegas. Carrey soon decided to move to Hollywood, where he began performing at The Comedy Store and, in 1982, appeared on the televised stand-up show An Evening at the Improv.[20] The following year, he debuted his act on The Tonight Show.[21]
Despite his increasing popularity as a stand-up comic, Carrey turned his attention to the film and television industries, auditioning to be a cast member for the 1980–1981 season of NBC'sSaturday Night Live. Carrey was not selected for the position, although he did host the show in May 1996, and again in January 2011.[22] He was cast in several low-budget films, includingRubberface (1981), in which he played a struggling young comic, and Copper Mountain (1983), in which he played a sex-starved teen. The latter film included his impersonation of Sammy Davis Jr., and was not considered a full-length feature film since it ran less than one hour and consisted largely of musical performances by Rita Coolidge and Ronnie Hawkins.
In 1984, Carrey was cast as the lead in the NBC sitcom The Duck Factory, where he played a quirky young artist alongside Jay Tarses. However, the show was cancelled during its first season. Despite the cancellation, the show helped Carrey land supporting roles in several films: Once Bitten (1985), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), The Dead Pool (1988), and Doing Time on Maple Drive (1992). When Carrey returned to stand-up, he retired his old act, vowing that he didn't want to be famous for imitating other people. "Some nights it was a melee, literally, where I'd be standing trying to defend myself for what I was doing. People would be screaming at me to do my old act, and getting actually violent and angry at me."[21] While many thought he was ill-advised to retire his old act, others were increasingly interested in what Carrey was attempting to do. One of these people was writer/director Judd Apatow. The pair struck up a friendship and began writing material together.
Carrey continued to land small roles in film and television productions, 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. Damon introduced Carrey to his brother Keenen, who was creating a sketch comedy show called In Living Color for the new Fox network. Carrey eventually landed a recurring role in the show which first aired on April 15, 1990. By the third season, Carrey was one of the few remaining original cast members and was ready to move on to bigger things, after agreeing to take on his first lead role in a major Hollywood film.
Rise to fame
Carrey did not experience true stardom until he landed the lead role in the slapstick comedy Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), which premiered only months before In Living Color ended. Though he agreed to play the title character, Carrey was willing to take the role only if he was allowed to rewrite the script to suit his over-the-top visions. The film, while dismissed by most critics, was an international hit, and transformed Carrey into a bankable box-office star.
That same year, Carrey landed lead roles in The Mask and Dumb and Dumber. The Mask garnered him his first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor nomination, with Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praising him for his "joyful performance".[23] Well received by critics, Dumb and Dumber was a commercial success, grossing over $270 million worldwide,[24] and again increasing Carrey's fanbase.
In 1995, Carrey co-starred in the Joel Schumacher-directed superhero film Batman Forever, in which Batman tries to stop Two-Face and the Riddler (played by Carrey) in their villainous scheme to drain information from all the brains in Gotham City. The feature received reasonable reviews, with most criticism aimed at the movie's "blatant commercialism", as characterized by Peter Travers.[25] In that same year, Carrey reprised his role as Ace Ventura in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. Like the original film, it was well received by the public but heavily criticised by critics. However, it was a huge box-office success, earning $212 million worldwide in addition to breaking records, with a $40 million opening weekend.[26] Carrey earned $20 million for his next film, The Cable Guy (1996). Directed by Ben Stiller, Carrey played a lonely, slightly menacing cable TV installer who infiltrates the life of one of his customers (played by Matthew Broderick). The film tested Carrey's boundaries of his tried and true "hapless, hyper, overconfident" characters that he is known for regularly playing. However, it did not fare well with critics, many reacting towards Carrey's change of tone to previous films.[27] Despite the reviews, The Cable Guy grossed $102 million worldwide.[28]
He soon bounced back in 1997 with the critically acclaimed comedy Liar Liar, playing Fletcher Reede, a successful lawyer who has built his career on lying, regularly breaking promises that he makes to his son Max. Max soon makes a birthday wish that for just that one day, his dad would not be able to lie. Carrey was praised for his performance, earning a second Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor. Janet Maslin of The New York Times said, "Well into his tumultuous career, Mr. Carrey finally turns up in a straightforward comic vehicle, and the results are much wilder and funnier than this mundane material should have allowed."[29]
No comments:
Post a Comment