The Jim Carrey audition tape that ‘Saturday Night Live’ rejected
Jim Carrey enjoyed a meteoric lurch to superstardom as the goofy face behind iconic characters, including Ace Ventura, Stanley Ipkis, Lloyd Christmas and Ernie “Chip” Douglas, the cable guy. As the American answer to Rowan Atkinson, Carrey made his millions through a superhuman ability for wackiness and facial manipulation.
Carrey’s astonishing degree of facial muscle control and slapstick sense of humour stood him in good stead for a career in comedy from childhood. Although he was well aware of his abilities, it would take a hard graft over the 1980s before the real rewards were reaped. One of the biggest setbacks in Carrey’s early career was his failure to join Saturday Night Live.
Despite auditioning for SNL multiple times over the 1980s, Carrey was snubbed before reaching the big screen. According to SNL creator Lorne Michaels in the book Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, he was regrettably absent from Carrey’s auditions. Michaels claimed that things could have gone differently for the aspiring impressionist had he been on the board.
“Jim Carrey never auditioned for me personally,” he affirmed. “There is an audition tape which we almost played on the twenty-fifth-anniversary show — if he had come that night, we would have. We have all the audition tapes. Carrey, I think, auditioned for Al Franken the year I was executive producer, and Tom Davis and Al were the producers along with Jim Downey.”
“In ’85, when Brandon got me to come back, his whole argument was I had to learn how to delegate,” he added. “Dick had run it successfully that way, and so Tom, Al, and Jim did their stuff, and I sort of approved things. But later that season, when Brandon was again thinking about cancelling the show, he told me, ‘You have to completely take charge of everything again.'”
The SNL panel were also responsible for some other fairly alarming snubs, including Stephen Colbert, Lisa Kudrow, Aubrey Plaza and Zach Galifianakis, who fortunately all went on to prove their talents despite the setback. These four have all since been invited back to host the show.
In 2020, Carrey appeared on SNL to portray Joe Biden for a six-week run, but sadly, he stepped down after appearing in just six episodes. “Though my term was only meant to be 6 weeks, I was thrilled to be elected as your SNL President… comedy’s highest call of duty,” Carrey tweeted at the time. “I would love to go forward knowing that Biden was the victor because I nailed that s***. But I am just one in a long line of proud, fighting SNL Bidens!”
Below, we present Jim Carrey’s failed audition tapes from the 1980s in which the star can be seen impersonating a post-nuclear Elvis Presley and a glum Henry Fonda.
