Occasionally, you get comedy stars who make the transition, but it’s a big deal and often an anomaly within their career. Adam Sandler shocked audiences years ago with his "serious" work in Punch-Drunk Love and wowed us with his dramatic turn in Uncut Gems, which came in the middle of consistently cynical, lowbrow schlock released directly to Netflix.
This week, Jim Carrey announced that he's ready to retire from acting. "I have enough. I’ve done enough. I am enough,” he told Access Hollywood.
The saddest thing about that announcement is that Carrey's last completed film is Sonic the Hedgehog 2. While we've seen many faces and heard many voices from Carrey, it feels like he had far more good work ahead. There’s a case to be made that Jim Carrey isn’t just a great actor, but one of the best, bravest and most versatile performers of his generation.
Carrey first broke out on the comedy scene in the 1980s, where his wild performative wit took the late night comedy scene by storm. There was simply no one like him at the time; Carrey could seemingly invent a character out of a hat and create an entire backstory in the blink of an eye.
Take the best of the Saturday Night Live recurring sketches and combine it with the farcical wit of Robin Williams, and you get what Carrey could do on a seemingly nightly basis. Unlike SNL, which turned him down after he auditioned, Hollywood quickly took notice of the young star, and he began to slowly make his way on to the big screen. Funny enough, one of Carrey’s first film roles was in the Dirty Harry sequel The Dead Pool. We can’t think of anyone more distinct from Carrey in his mannerisms, acting method, political beliefs, demeanor or physical appearance than Clint Eastwood.
Carrey had to pay the bills and certainly appeared in some schlocky junk early in his career. Remember Once Bitten? That’s the good ol' flick in which Carrey plays a horny young man who finds out he has to lose his virginity in order to avoid being possessed by a vampire. Yeah, we’re sure it’s aged well. There’s a Netflix rom-com remake we want to see.
However, a trio of roles in 1994 launched Carrey as the comedic idol of an entire generation. Over the course of 12 months, he starred in Dumb & Dumber, The Mask and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Each film spoke to a different part of Carrey’s unique brand of humor.
With Dumb & Dumber, we got to see his physical flexibility. Carrey is able to take a seemingly irritable character into an endearing presence. It would’ve been easy to turn the early Farrely Brothers joint into lowest-common-denominator toilet humor, but Carrey does something incredible by stretching the joke out to meet a 90-minute running time.
With The Mask, you get the hero. Carrey actually transforms entirely for a moment, but not into the green-faced superhero. He sheds his confidence to play Stanley Ipkiss, the flustered, bumblingly nervous bank teller who can’t get the confidence to speak to his crush or confront his bullies. All of the fearless kinetic energy that Carrey embodied on stage is absent, and it's really not until he dons the green makeup that his personality really shines through.
With Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, you get the absolute goofball. Somehow, Carrey has always had the ability to be so utterly bizarre that it's impossible to look away. Ace Ventura isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and certainly some of the transphobic humor has not aged well. However, for a generation of kids, this was groundbreaking comedy. What Carrey was doing isn’t something that their parents’ generation could understand.
Carrey’s box office prominence in the '90s was unsurprising, but his success did weirdly speak to a diversity within the industry. He wasn’t a macho, traditional leading man. Carrey didn’t ooze the sex appeal that Hollywood seemed so desperate to capture. He also showed that he was willing to work with auteur filmmakers and take risks on darker material.
He wasn’t a macho, traditional leading man. Carrey didn’t ooze the sex appeal that Hollywood seemed so desperate to capture. He also showed that he was willing to work with auteur filmmakers and take risks on darker material.
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It wasn’t a matter of Carrey “finally taking himself seriously.” He never put less than 100% effort into his roles, even if they were something as cheekily sentimental as Liar Liar or as weirdly pitched as The Cable Guy. However, he could hone that same ability to transform into someone with a complete history and apply it to more dramatic projects. He also was able to infuse his humor within more dramatic material, something that’s not easy to do.
The Truman Show is a film that’s as funny as it is heartbreaking. Carrey, the unknowing subject of a 24-hour reality show, earns some laughs as he slowly begins to feel the anxiety of being watched by millions of daily viewers, but it’s a deeply terrifying situation. The idea of the line between reality and performance being blurred is prescient of today’s media culture in more than one way. It also showed a uniquely personal struggle that Carrey himself could relate to; even when he’s trying to be genuine, it feels like he’s performing.
With Man on the Moon, Carrey did the impossible: He made a movie about stand-up comedy that’s actually funny. That’s rare. Have you seen Dustin Hoffman in Lenny? It’s frickin' depressing. We know comedians struggle with mental health issues, but does every movie about the stand-up scene have to be so miserable? Carrey showed both the torment and joy of Andy Kaufman, and anyone who watched the Netflix documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond knows how completely Carrey dedicated himself to the role.
The actor continued this high run of ambitious projects sprinkled within his routinely silly fare as he entered the 21st century. Yes, he did big comedy hits such as Bruce Almighty, How The Grinch Stole Christmas or Yes Man, but he also brought a tender vulnerability to films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film BBC film critics voted as one of the 10 best of the last 20 years.
Carrey certainly went through a lot in the last few years. He’s dealt with personal tragedy after losing a partner to suicide. He's spoken of struggling with depression and gotten openly, uncomfortably existential at red carpet events (famously telling reporter Catt Sadler the fashion event he was at was "meaningless" and "there is no me"). Carrey has also experienced plenty of media backlash, especially after he remained outspoken about gun reform. He even got into hot water recently when he called out Hollywood’s hypocrisy for applauding Will Smith’s violence at the Academy Awards.
It’s totally OK for Carrey to retire and turn full-time to painting. But please, don’t let Sonic the Hedgehog 2 be his last role. Give this man a medal. Give him a lifetime achievement award. Hell, give him an Oscar. We hear Will Smith's might be up for grabs.
