Jim Carrey

James Eugene Carrey was born on January 17, 1962, and holds dual Canadian and American citizenship. He is best known for his high-energy, physical comedy and is widely considered one of the top comedic actors of his era. His awards include two Golden Globes, plus nominations for BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Carrey spent the 1980s developing his stand-up act and taking small film roles. He first gained wider notice when he joined the Fox sketch show *In Living Color* (1990–1994). His big-screen breakthrough came in 1994 with a string of hits: *Ace Ventura: Pet Detective*, *The Mask*, and *Dumb and Dumber*. The following year, he starred in *Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls* and *Batman Forever*. The success of these five films made him the first comic actor to command a $20 million upfront salary for a movie, starting with *The Cable Guy* (1996).

He remained a leading man in comedies like *Liar Liar* (1997), *How the Grinch Stole Christmas* (2000), *Bruce Almighty* (2003), *Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events* (2004), and *Yes Man* (2008). Since the 2010s, his film appearances have been less frequent; notable projects include *Dumb and Dumber To* (2014) and playing Doctor Eggman in the *Sonic the Hedgehog* movies (2020–present).

Though often typecast as a comedian, Carrey also earned acclaim in dramatic roles. He won Golden Globes for his performances in *The Truman Show* (1998) and *Man on the Moon* (1999), where he played Andy Kaufman. His role in *Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind* (2004) earned him a BAFTA nomination and another Golden Globe nod. He later starred in the Showtime series *Kidding* (2018–2020), which brought him a seventh Golden Globe nomination.

Carrey was born in Newmarket, Ontario, to Kathleen (née Oram), a homemaker, and Percy Carrey, a musician and accountant. Raised Catholic, he had three older siblings. His mother was of Irish and Scottish descent; his father was of French-Canadian ancestry, and the family’s original surname was Carré.

At age eight, he started making faces in a mirror and discovered a talent for impressions. When he was ten, he wrote to Carol Burnett of *The Carol Burnett Show*, claiming he was already a master impressionist and should be considered for the show; he was thrilled to receive a form-letter reply. A fan of Monty Python, Carrey appeared on *Monty Python’s Best Bits (Mostly)* in 2014 and recalled how the sketch “The Funniest Joke in the World”—in which Michael Palin’s character laughs himself to death—affected him. *Radio Times* noted that Palin’s performance was “uncannily Carreyesque.”

He spent his early years in Scarborough, Ontario, attending Blessed Trinity Catholic Elementary School in North York. His family later moved to Burlington, Ontario, where he went to Aldershot High School. Eventually, the family became homeless and lived in a Volkswagen van; teenage Carrey and his brother spent months in a tent at Charles Daley Park on Lake Ontario in Lincoln, Ontario. Their financial situation improved when his father found work in the accounting department at Titan Wheels tire factory in Scarborough. In exchange for living in a house across the street, Carrey and his older brother worked eight-hour shifts as janitors and security guards at the factory, from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Moving back to Scarborough, he attended Agincourt Collegiate Institute but dropped out on his sixteenth birthday. He began performing comedy in downtown Toronto while still working at the factory. In a 2007 interview, Carrey said that if show business hadn’t worked out, he’d probably be working at the Dofasco steel mill in Hamilton, Ontario—the mills he could see across Burlington Bay as a young man, which he thought held “the great jobs.”

Carrey’s first stand-up experience came in 1977 at age 15, when his father helped him put together an act and drove him to downtown Toronto to debut at Yuk Yuk’s comedy club, then operating one night a week in a community center basement on Church Street. His mother chose his outfit—a polyester leisure suit—reasoning that was how people dressed on *The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast*. His conventional impersonations bombed in the club’s raunchy atmosphere, leaving him doubting his potential. Yuk Yuk’s owner Mark Breslin later described the debut as “bad Rich Little.” The family’s financial struggles made it hard to support his ambitions.

Eventually, the family’s finances stabilized and they moved to a new home in Jackson’s Point. With more stability, Carrey returned to the stage in 1979 with a more polished act, landing his first paid gig: a 20-minute spot at the Hay Loft club on Highway 48 in Scarborough for about $20, on a bill with a performer from The Pig and Whistle. He then overcame his fears and went back downtown to Yuk Yuk’s, which had by then moved to a permanent location on Bay Street.