Jim Carrey: Carrey'd Away

In real life, Carrey is often equally zippy. Trying to disarm Ace Ventura co-star Sean Young on her first day of shooting, he cracked her up by saying, "Sean, we're not going to put up with any of your psycho crap, got it?" He recently marched up to Steven Spielberg and quipped, "Hey, that Schindler's List wrap party must have been a blast." And, on meeting Schindler's star Liam Nee-son, he broke into a parody of one of that movie's final scenes, wailing, "If I had only sold my shoes. And these truck tires would have fetched a nice price on the market. I could have had a garage sale." This guy's got psycho energy to burn.

As famous and hot as he is right now, Carrey barely holds this psycho energy at bay. As he puts it, "I'm charming, but I dip into the Prozac now and then."

Perhaps self-doubts and mood enhancers are understandable, considering how, over the past 10 years, Carrey has gone from being a TV comic who years ago was expected to pop as the "next big thing" (his 1984 NBC series, "The Duck Factory," stiffed) to being an actor working his way up in small movie roles (Peggy Sue Got Married, Earth Girls Are Easy, The Dead Pool) and in big roles in TV movies (Doing Time on Maple Drive) to being the epicenter of a freak movie success (Ace Ventura's, homing in on $70 million, before video) to being a guy every studio in town wanted for their next project to being the star to whom New Line Cinema gave this deal: two flicks, tons of creative say-so, a minimum of $7 million. Each.

Given all this new success, I want to know exactly how impossible the 32-year-old has become. Big-time tantrums? Storming off the set? Demands for bigger trailers, private jets, a disposable retinue of flunkies and sex partners? "There's absolutely no change because I've always been impossible," Carrey retorts, laughing. "Actually, I don't think I'm impossible to deal with. The new stuff--the money, the numbers--they're so ridiculous, I look at it like a Monopoly board. So much of what's going on for me right now is like a juggling act. I mean, literally, after I talk with you, I've got to prepare to do this next movie, Dumb and Dumber--about two really stupid guys--then I've got to look at the script and give notes to the writers for the movie after that, The Best Man. So, the business side of it to me right now is like a hobby where I kind of like get on the phones, going, 'Yes!' into one, 'No!' into the other, 'New York? Sell! Dallas? Buy!'"

I tell Carrey I've heard he can get pretty rambunctious on the set when things don't fly his way. "I've had pretty good luck so far with the two recent movies I've done. There hasn't been what you'd call dissension with the cast and crew. But, okay, there have been moments here and there when the producer wants to move on and I feel, like, you know, it's important that we get something down that's right. So, you know, I'll start kicking shit and stuff, yeah. Just for the good of the piece. I mean, sure, now I've got a certain amount of power, responsibility, casting approvals, director approvals, but the 'thing' that's happened to me didn't happen overnight. It happened over years of ups and downs. I've been around L.A. for 12 years and it's always, 'When are you gonna get something that's gonna show what you can do?' Since I started out doing shows in Toronto, Canada, from the time I was, like, 18, articles came out that started predicting that I was gonna be as big as Johnny Carson in six months, as big as Richard Pryor. And people kept asking m 'When is it gonna happen?' And I'd go, 'Give me a week or so.' I've had people saying. 'This is it, your break, you'll never be able to walk in the street unrecognized again,' then, the next month, 'He's finished; he's had his shot.' I'm grateful it's been a slow, gradual build because, 10 years ago, there'd have been no way I could have handled the stuff, the pressures that I'm handling now. I'd have killed myself. Yeah, I worked my butt off and this is the way it was supposed to happen for me."

Although his butt is wanted by everybody in town at the moment, does Carrey actually think it's worth seven million? "I try not to think too much about it. But, what, I'm going to turn it down? I look at other actors, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks. I love their work, but I go, 'Hey, I'm talented, too. Why not me?' Before Ace it was like, 'We'll send you a script, Jim, but the first 10 pages are a little soiled.' Yeah, because they were the scripts Tom Hanks wiped his ass with. Now, I'm the first name that comes to their minds rather than being in the second wave."

Being on the crest of the first wave can be pretty crazy. Recently, Carrey tried to slip in unobtrusively to see Ace Ventura in an Atlanta theater, but the management, so excited to spot him, sent around staff members to trail him with walkie-talkies, going, "The eagle has landed." They even left on the house lights throughout the movie so that the rest of the audience could ogle.

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