A meteoric rise: How Jim Carrey went from unknown to superstar in 10 months
Relative to the number of professional actors working at any given time from the lowest rungs of the industry ladder to the very highest, star-making performances are an exceedingly rare occurrence. Nobody seemed to tell Jim Carrey, though, who enjoyed no less than three of them in the space of under a year.
Prior to 1994, Carrey had been the first-billed star in precisely zero mainstream Hollywood productions, with the closet he’d gotten before that point coming a decade prior when he played the male lead opposite Lauren Hutton in 1985’s vampiric teen comedy Once Bitten.
He was a fairly known quantity on television at least, having evolved from stand-up into sketch comedy and becoming a key cast member on In Living Color for the duration of its five-season run. Not that anyone was predicting cinematic superstardom in his immediate future until he suddenly roared into life to cement himself as one of the most popular and bankable names in the business before the calendar had even ticked over into 1995.
His rapid-fire ascent is even more impressive considering Carrey repeatedly turned down the opportunity to inhabit the title character in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective because he thought the script was awful. However, production company Morgan Creek were so determined to secure his signature that he was afforded the opportunity to rewrite the script, and he didn’t even have to agree if it wasn’t up to his standards.
Of course, it was, and the film would become one of 1994’s most widely-quoted releases on its way to recouping its budget more than seven times over at the global box office. Less than six months later, Carrey was back on the big screen, and the success of The Mask made Ace Ventura look like a modest independent comedy by comparison.
The comic book adaptation that introduced Cameron Diaz to the masses thrived on Carrey’s rubber-faced manic energy, earning an Academy Award nomination for its visual effects after hauling in more than $35 million in ticket sales. The Mask had been in development since 1989, but once the leading man was in place, it was off to the races. It’s a powerhouse turn that showcased not only Carrey’s inherent charisma and inimitable on-screen exuberance but also signalled he was a certifiable box office draw.
Five months after that, Carrey was back on top of the world for the third time that year after steering Dumb and Dumber to another hugely profitable run in cinemas, with the Farrelly brothers’ breakout flick ending up as one of the decade’s most beloved comedies. The directorial siblings only knew him as ‘the white guy’ from In Living Color beforehand, but thanks to Ace Ventura, they realised they were onto a winner. Not only that, but the star’s freshly minted credentials helped land him a $7m payday for playing Lloyd Christmas.
On December 31st, 1993, Carrey’s most prominent role to date was being part of an ensemble sketch show’s troupe of familiar faces. Fast forward 365 days and his name was the first in the credits of three smash hits that combined to earn north of $700m. That’s a hell of a change in the span of 12 months, and it still stands as one of the most meteoric rises of the modern era.
