The New Yorker Radio Hour - Jim Carrey Doesn’t Exist (According to Jim Carrey)

Episode Date: November 23, 2018

As a young boy, Jim Carrey got in trouble for staring in the mirror. He didn’t do it because he was vain; he was practicing the comic skills that made him one of the great impressionists of our time, a man whose face seems to be made of some pliable alien material. Yet that malleable face is as capable of portraying deep and complex emotion as it is of making us laugh. As a result, Carrey’s career has been one reinvention after another. These days, he’s been lighting up Twitter as a political cartoonist—his way of drawing Donald Trump is particularly grotesque—and starring in the television series “Kidding.” He plays a children’s entertainer, in the mold of Mr. Rogers, who is struggling with the death of his own son. Carrey sat down with Colin Stokes at the New Yorker Festival in October, 2018. He spoke about his reverence for Fred Rogers and the inspiration he takes from Eastern philosophy. “I don’t exist,” Carrey says. “There’s no separation between you and me at all . . . I know I’m sounding really crazy right now, but it’s really true.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported by Land Rover. With a new Land Rover as your companion, you'll see Adventure wherever you go. Visit your local Land Rover retailer for special offers on the 2019 Rangerover. Adventure, it's yours for the taking. Land Rover, above and beyond. From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm David Remnick. I hope you're enjoying the holiday weekend, and if not, cheer up. because we've got something special for you. One of the great comic performers working today, the inimitable Jim Carrey. Carrie was cast as the lead in a sitcom when he was just 22. He was on the groundbreaking ensemble show in Living Color, and he was the whitest guy in a mostly black cast.

In the 90s, he became an almost ubiquitous figure in film comedy, and he returned to television in 2018 with a dramatic role on Kidding on Showtime. In the past couple of years, Carrie has also been lighting up Twitter as a political cartoonist with a particularly grotesque way of depicting Donald Trump. So maybe it's appropriate that when he came to the New Yorker Festival in 2018, he was interviewed by the New Yorker's associate cartoon editor, Colin Stokes. So we're going to start at the beginning of your life.

Oh, my life, okay. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. If that's all right. I'd say that was a long way back. Yeah. I was going to ask you. you could tell us a bit about your parents? My mother was an Irish girl from Toronto,

and my father was a Frenchman from Quebec. Not from Quebec, but he sounded like he was from Quebec at the beginning, and then he lost it and became just like everyone else by the age of five. And they met each other, and they were in love very much so. And I used to think it was codependence, but I think it was something deeper than that. it was when my mother passed away I thought there was this weird little thought in my head that I said like well maybe because she's not well all the time maybe now dad will be able to you know he'll have

some sort of an interesting new chapter you know and he just fell apart because all he wanted was her and that was it for him so yeah and that's my mom and dad my mom let me tell you about my father you know I have to tell you about my father because he is is one of the greatest humans ever. And a lot of people would say that about their own father. But I really honestly, I'm here to tell you, he was a type of person that in five minutes of talking to him, you felt like he knew him for 50 years.

He'd give you the shirt off his back, and he was constantly sacrificing himself to other people. And he was my champion, absolutely my champion. When it came to performing, he didn't say I was stupid. He said, I was brilliant. He thought it was really creative and wonderful. And I go back to the bedroom and go and creative and wonderful's good. He was a musician, right?

He was a musician and also just the funniest guy on earth. Rodney Dangerfield used to call him on his birthday and ask me all the time. Rodney would be like, how's your dad, man? A fucking guy's hilarious. First time he ever met him after like a minute, he said, who the fuck is this guy? I said we're a tag team, man, tag team of comedy. But he was the encouragement, and he said to me at a certain point, he said,

hey, Jim, there's these comedy clubs. I was working in a factory at the time, and he said there's these things called comedy clubs where you could get up and do the thing you do all the time. And so he wrote a really horrible 15-minute routine that was just me imitating people, people on the Carol Burnett show. And I showed up to the hippest club in Toronto, which was Yuck Yuck Yucs. It was downtown in Yorkville. It was just like tragically hip down there.

And it's, it was a disaster. It was a disaster. My mother dressed me in a polyester suit. And I said, you sure about this? And I saw it on Donahue. It's a fine material. It's, uh, I know also there was a brief period that you've talked about. where your father lost his job,

and that that was quite a formative time for you? Yeah, he lost a job when I was 12, and we went from kind of the lower, well, definitely lower middle class, but a feeling of security to fury at the world for what it had done to my father. So my life was altered at that moment,

and I went through a few years, you know, before the comedy. The comedy was a symptom of all of those. things coming together at once. But that was a brutal time for me. And that's what it was. It was really anger. And I understand kids who go to school because when they have trouble at home, forget school. You can't hear school. You can't hear a teacher. It's like Charlie Brown. It's bar-w-w-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-you- know, I didn't want to make any friends suddenly. And I was working for eight hours. Listen to this sob story. I was working for eight hours

after school in a factory where I was a janitor on a giant factory floor. And there were two factions, I won't say what, because I don't care, but two factions of races that were there, and they hated each other, and they all carried knives, and it was a very kind of weird atmosphere. And I was the white dude. And I was the guy with the cleaning cart. And can I tell you some really crazy stories? Sure. Okay. They used to poo in a sink. Is that the only option, or is there...

Huh? No, there were toilets as far as the eye could see. Oh, okay. But they did that for me. It's pretty thoughtful. Especially for me. So, soon after,

you moved to Hollywood in 1983. Actually, I'd moved there in 1981. 1984. In which case, Johnny Carson, who were about to well, see kind of, lied on his show

because he said that you moved there 10 months before you did that. Oh, there's all kinds of revisions. And mistakenly so, people just, you know, time gets warped in people's minds. I'm terrible with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think if we could have a look at a clip of you on Johnny Carson when you were 21 on Thanksgiving Day. God, help me. This young man is a young impressionist from Toronto and a little bit different. And he's going to be starring in a new series for NBC this January called The Duck Factory.

He's also been in Hollywood about 10 months and created quite a bit of excitement. This is his first appearance on American television. Would you welcome Jim Kerry? Jim. Hello? My name is Jim Carrey. I'd like to do some impressions for you tonight

if you'll just give me a minute. That was before. content. That's Jim Carrey, BC. Before content. Available on YouTube, though. I think the first time I watched that, I don't understand how fuck you do that. And so, apologies for swearing, sorry, that won't happen again. I guess I was curious about the exact mechanics of how you would build. Did you have a point where you started, like you saw one expression? When I was a child, I got in trouble all the time for staring at myself in the mirror. And it wasn't that I was vain. It was just that I like to manipulate my face and see if I could come up with the phantom of the opera.

And whatever. And, you know, my mother would say things like, if you don't stop looking in that mirror, you're going to see the devil. And so I was like, shong. Lighting some candles and stuff and going, oh. and it evolved into seeing faces when I do that and seeing people's faces I recognized. And then it became an organic thing, which is kind of the way the acting and everything panned out because I would go into movies like on Golden Pond,

and I'd come out and I was Henry Fonda. And it was because of the feeling, the feeling of love for his wife and his feelings of loss and terror of death, and all those things. I walked out of the theater with that because it's so tangible and such a lovely performance,

one of my favorite actors ever. And I had the feeling inside that... Strawberries? I went a little ways in the woods. Couldn't remember a thing. Not one damn tree. But it came out that way, you know? It makes me wonder, actually.

So do you still... work on new ones? Do you add to your repertoire or is that basically like done at this point? Yeah, I don't have a great desire, but if I'm on Saturday Night Live or something like that, the wondrous part about that kind of stuff is that I can employ that talent, which I don't generally get to do, you know, and it's been that way for me. It's been a growth situation where I get to a certain point where people go, oh my God, you're really great. That's what you are. And I go, nope, I'm something different. And because I want to constantly be, you know,

fashioning new limbs to this avatar, you know, and I want to constantly be growing. So what happens is I generally, I get a lull in popularity and a little bit I kind of go away and I learn a new swing. And this time I learned how to paint and I learned how to sculpt. And I became a political cartoonist for some reason just because I'm like the Henry Fonda movie, I feel the feelings,

and that's the only way that I can deal with them is to turn them into something positive. I was going to ask, the first show that you were in was called The Duck Factory. Oh, good. I thought you were going to save a couple of wet t-shirt contests

that I want you to bring. In which you played an aspiring animation artist, right? Yes, that's right. I came to town, About a year in, I was on the show called The Duck Factory, and everybody was like, oh, my God, you're done, you're made. It's between cheers and Hill Street Blues. It's the greatest slot that anyone could ever have.

Thursday night. I mean, it's ridiculous, prime time, everything. Only the people that hired me had no idea that I was funny. So they just wanted a nice guy, and they didn't let me do anything funny in the 13 episodes. So it kind of went off pretty quick. And as soon as I got the show, I called Mom and Dad. And I said, I made it.

Come on down, come on and live with me and stuff. And they came down to Hollywood, and we lived in the Valley together. And after a while, it appeared the show wasn't going to go. And I ran out of money, and I went bankrupt. And not officially bankrupt, but I lost all my money. And I was tasked with the difficult moment of having to say to my parents, you got to go back. I got no money.

And that was a horrifying time in my life, like a very painful moment of my life. And I can't even tell you all the reasons why. But, you know, those are the things that become your palate. They become your colors, you know. And I tried anyway. And then they went back to Canada because of the hospitalization and everything. My mother was taken care of. So I still took care of them up here, but I didn't have to worry about the medical issues.

And isn't that interesting and prescient? You know? And I'm shooting right now. I'm shooting Sonic. I'm shooting Dr. Robotnik. Are you enjoying us? I really am enjoying it. But my point was I was in Vancouver and I was seeing these people.

It seemed like there's just a lack of pressure, man. And you just go, why is that? And you realize, oh, they're being taken care of. They have a government who cares about them. You know, whether it's perfect or not, it's never perfect, but they have a government who cares about them. And we here are so shit-scared and been terrified to the idea of anything socialistic, you know.

My God, why should we care about people who can't care for themselves? Well, because, you know, because it's love. and it's surprising the difference it makes in people's kindness towards each other in their lack of pressure and it makes a gigantic difference you know did make me wonder your sort of political engagement do you have any politician or any aspirations to become a politician or any political aspirations Could we see Kerry 2020? No. No?

No. No? Uh-uh. Not with my past. Not in this country, man. No, no. Nope. I've got another short clip. Yeah.

And this is from a project of yours that was released in 1994, Dumb and Dumber. Okay. Let's take a look at that. So you get fire. Oh yeah. They always freak out when we leave the scene of an accident, you know? Yeah, well, I lost my job too.

Man, you are one pathetic loser. No offense. No, none take it. You know what really chaps my ass, though? I spent my life savings turning my van into a dog. Hi, Petty. The alarm alone cost me 200. Hey, chicks love it.

It's a shagging wagon. What's with a briefcase? It's a love memento. The most beautiful woman alive. I drove her to the airport. Sparks flew. Motions ran high. She actually talked to me.

Get out of here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Tractor beam. Suck me right in. Anyway, she left this in the terminal and flew to Aspen and out of my life. What's in it? Man, I would have to be a low life to go rooting around in somebody else's private property.

Is it locked? Yeah, really well. See, what's weird is that by today's standards, they're not dumb anymore. Seems like two normal guys now. Politicians even, maybe, yeah. Could be. It could run for our office for sure. You guys, you and... Maybe they could be democratic tacticians.

You and Jeff Daniels have such a really wonderful natural chemistry there on screen. He's a lovely human being and an amazing artist and dedicated beyond belief as an actor. He was the only person that came in when we were reading people and stuff and he came in. He just threw his hat in the ring and he was actually communicating to me. And instead of trying to score and it was really beautiful. There was a real friendship. that year was kind of this is a fact when I've mentioned to people

that 1994 you not only had Dun Dunmer come out but you also had Ace Ventura Peck Detective and the mask those three films in one year you know and at that time the you know I can tell you the like first of all I wanted the character to stand out and be memorable but so you the bowl cut was my first consideration

but then the tooth happened because I have a bonding in the front of my teeth, you know, that hangs on for only so long, and then someday, it could happen tonight, because there's a little tiny chip in it, actually. I think I got a new chip. So, it may come out tonight. I may become Lloyd Christmas right in front of you. But it happens in restaurants and stuff like that. I bite into a roll of sushi, and it just goes, ping, across the room. But that was a reaction, knocking my bonding out the first time was a reaction to getting paid for me.

It was the moment when my salary went through the roof and everything became very important. And so my first reaction to important is to make it unimportant to me. And so that was a way of, I knew that it was there. It had fallen off a few times. So I kind of took a little bicklider and I encouraged it off my tooth and showed up with it. And they went, yeah.

That's it. That's the guy. Jim Carrey talking with Colin Stokes at the New Yorker Festival in 2018. In a minute, Carrie talks about coping with death, the oneness of all things, and Ace Ventura Pet Detective. I'm David Remnick, and you're listening to The New Yorker Radio Hour, so stick around. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported by Land Rover. Invest in Rocky Mountain Passes. Trade in hedge funds for tropical rainforest funds. Put your money into wondrous real estate you won't find on any broker's website.

Adventure, it's yours for the taking. With a new Land Rover is your companion, you'll see Adventure wherever you go. Visit your local Land Rover retailer for special offers on the 2019 Range Rover. Adventure, it's yours for the taking. Land Rover, above and beyond. Welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnant. Our conversation with Jim Carrey continues.

Now, it's hard to believe, but Carrie's been a presence in the entertainment world for nearly 35 years. first in comedy, and then increasingly in more dramatic roles like kidding on Showtime. In that show, he plays a children's TV host, a kind of Mr. Rogers' character who struggles with the loss of his own child. Here's Jim Carrey at the New Yorker Festival in the fall of 2018, talking with Colin Stokes of The New Yorker. Colin was asking him about the year he really blew up. It was 1994 when Carrie was in three-hit movies.

You said that the Ace Ventura character was based off of a bird? Yes, smart bird, like a cockatiel or a, you know, any kind of mocking creature, you know. And so I guess I do the walk for you, and you'll see the whole thing. First of all, you got the sunflower seeds going all the time because that's what birds like, right? Got the seeds going. And the walk is, you know, just basically, it's just smart bird at the edge of the pond. Righty then.

I can't believe I remembered that. So good. It's all right there for me tonight. Woo! Yeah. The sort of mention of the paycheck makes me think of the story of the $10 million check,

which I know, but I was wondering if you might be able to share it with everything. Yeah, manifestation, yeah, sure. I had an Irish teacher, a substitute teacher in grade two who came in with all this lore. And no, she came in and she said in the morning, before morning prayer was Catholic school.

She said, every time I want something, I just ask the Virgin Mary for it. She asks God for it, and I get whatever I want. I promised something in return, and that was it. So I made my promise to say the rosary every night,

and I asked for a beautiful new bike, you know, because my father couldn't afford a bike. So it turns out I walked home, two weeks later and everybody was standing in the living room around a brand new bike and they said, you want it? And I said, what do you mean I want it?

So they said a friend of yours, Billy, entered your name in the raffle without you knowing it. And it's been like that ever since. I can you know, I can manifest things and it's the truth

for me. It has been true for me. Certainly there's a lot of unofficial evidence. The check was one that you, so you wrote yourself a check? I wrote, yeah, I went, you know what, I'm just, I'm doing the comedy clubs and, you know, why not try to implore a little, explore a little magic in, you know, in this? And my thinking was when I, when I remembered again, oh my gosh, you know, I've been manifesting my whole life, why don't just do it now?

I'm in Hollywood, I'm starving to death, and I live in a single, of apartment with a brand new baby in a basket on the ground. And I'm like, why not? You get desperate and you start thinking of magical stuff. And so I made myself a check for $10 million. I've told this story so much. Tell me if you're sick of it. Seriously. I made myself a check for $10 million for acting services rendered, payable to the date of Thanksgiving 1995. And I put it in my wallet and it slowly deteriorated over the next four years. And six months before the date was due, I made $10 million on a film. And yeah, that was incredible. You got to work, though. You actually got to walk through doors when they open and show up for meetings and do all that

stuff. But I used to go up after doing three comedy clubs a night, I'd go up to the top of Mulholland drive and sit on the side of the road and look at it out. at all the lights and dream up my life and dream myself a millionaire and a great artist and someone whose work would last and keep introducing itself to people again. And look what happened. It was amazing to me. I went up there recently and tried to do it again and I got a ticket. I got a ticket. And I just started laughing when the cop gave me the $60 ticket. And I was, you had no idea what a great investment this place is. Anyway, there's a lot of that that's gone on in my life.

So later on in the 90s, you sort of moved towards projects that were veering away from the sort of full-blown comedy, like the Truman Show and Man on the Moon. And in general, that's sort of a theme in your career, right? the sort of... Venturing out. Yeah, constantly changing. Yes. Is there something...

Why do you do that? Because I don't exist. To me, I'm an avatar. And in the morning, I pick up whatever weapons I need, and I go, and I play the game. And that's how I look at the world. I have...

I look at the world from two different perspectives, and they're ancient perspectives. There's nothing new, but there's the absolute, which is the knowledge of wholeness, That, you know, one of the greatest spiritual things ever said or the greatest thing ever said was the Buddha who said there are no two things. And once you understand that there are no two things, then you are free to a certain extent. You still get caught up in the minutia of politics and all those things to get angry and all those things.

But the understanding that I didn't come to sit in a building tonight, you know, I am the building tonight. and the street and the city and everything else. And what's happening right now is consciousness entertaining itself. Do you feel like when you're expressing that, that that's been sort of misunderstood? Well, I think people are kind of hip to it, I think, for the most part. I think there's a lot of it out there, and it's ancient. It informed all the modern religions at Vedanta, Vedic literature.

and it's very simple. It's just very simple. The only concept you have to understand is that there's no separation between you and me at all. Not one way. Just there's two realms. Everything is one thing, in which case you're free when you really feel that

and there's the other side of it, which is the relative, the world in which you believe your separateness and your relative relationship to other beings. So I know I'm sounding really crazy right now, but it's, it's really true. There are two things to consider. And the consideration that gets you out of that minutiae and that daily, I'm just a little thing struggling in the world is, is that knowledge that, no, you're not. You're every damn thing that ever happened. This sort of connects

actually to the film well so the the filming of the film Man on the Moon in which you play Andy Andy Kaufman yeah

and there was the documentary that came out last year which was made with footage that was sort of shot from behind the scenes when you were shooting we've got a clip from Jim and Andy in which you're talking

maybe we can have a look at saying the exact Same thing, word for word. It's different, I promise. It wasn't what I wanted. I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be successful. I wanted to be a famous actor.

But what do they want? What do they want? What do they want? What do they want? And then one day, in the middle of the night, I woke up out of a sound sleep, like sat up in bed and went, they want to be free from concern.

And the light bulb went off. In the very next night, I went to the comedy store. And the first thing I did was say, Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and how are you the same? All righty then. Like that.

And it killed, slaughtered. Suddenly they just roared because they knew I didn't care. What I had decided in that moment in my bed was they need to be free from concern. So I'm going to be the guy that's free from concern. I'm going to appear to be the guy that's free from concern. concern. It's as if I went into a fugue state and Hyde showed up. I put that mask on. I have a hide inside me that shows up when there are people watching.

You know, when there's a thousand people with their eyes on me and they hand me a microphone, Jim goes away and Hyde comes out. So the very obvious question is that we're currently in front of an audience of slightly under a thousand people and you have a microphone. Do you feel like we're getting... I think Hyde has showed a couple of times here already. Yeah, he's been out here, but I live in a peaceful kind of coexistence with him,

and he is meant to just bring happiness when he comes. He's a happy hide. I thought it would be nice to talk a bit about your show, which is on Showtime Kidding. Yes. And maybe, perhaps, to start, well, first, just to give a bit of background, your character is Jeff Pickles? Jeff Pickles, yes. And he's like kind of a Mr. Rogers-esque?

Yes, definitely born of that ilk. He's designed to be that person. And I always loved Mr. Rogers, and I was shocked that we never found anything bad about him, and I'm so glad. But, because that's a pretty out there character, man. But yeah, I just, I was always amazed at Mr. Rogers and the way he went on the, like, the Tonight Show, and Johnny Carson really couldn't joke with him. He couldn't, he wanted to go after him and make fun of him, but he was so authentic that there was no way through the wall of authenticity, you know, for irony or anything else.

It was just what it was. He just was kind. these projects find me at the times when I am the person to live them. So, you know, because of a lot of the things I've been through in the last five years or so, a lot of struggles and challenges, you know, and a lot of a new understanding of grief and a new understanding of pain. And that's why kidding came to me, because I understand loss and I understand grief. the actually I thought it might be good to see a clip

where your character or Jeff wants to shoot an episode where he talks about the death of his son and sort of also talks about loss and death to children which is such a difficult thing to do yeah

you do a show about death children will run from the room in tears bring in a live audience do it now. It's a bad idea you'll traumatize the kids. You're going to hit me? Hit you. I don't want it hit you.

Sometimes when we think we're opening up, we're actually falling apart. Please marinate on that. For a reason. For some greater good. And if that isn't true, then we can make it something. We can make it mean something. And what good is our power in the face of a senseless random happening? If we should today, we can hear it tomorrow.

Frank Langella. So wonderful. He's fantastic. Such a brilliant cast. Truly. This is gorgeous and amazing. He's really, really funny as well. Oh, he's super funny.

Super funny. So that, back to death. Back to death. We always got to go back there. I remember learning about death as a kid and then obsessing about it. I think it's going to be fucking awesome. Yeah. It probably wouldn't be too bad.

I think it's going to be good. On the other side, depending on how it happens. It's going to be like, oh, really? That's what I was worried about. That's death. You're all afraid of it, but it's going to be amazing. It's going to be super cool. Are you watching the show?

Yeah. Oh, that's nice. Very good. Can I say I love you very much, and I thank you so much for coming out tonight. and being here, and I hope I didn't scare you too much. Thank you, someone. I love you very much. Jim Carrey at the New Yorker Festival with Colin Stokes.

I'm David Remnick, and that's the show, and I hope you'll join us again next time for the comedian, cabaret singer, and actor, Bridget Everett, live and uncensored. Till then, stay in touch with us on Twitter at New Yorker Radio. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yard, with additional music by Lexus Quadrado.

This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Cario, Riannon Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen Frillman, Calalia, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, Sarah Nix, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Rhonda Sherman, David O'Hanna, Emily Mann, and Jessica Henderson. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part

by the Turina Endowment Fund. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported by Land Rover. Invest in Rocky Mountain Passes, Trade and hedge funds for tropical rainforest funds. Put your money into wondrous real estate you won't find on any broker's website. Adventure, it's yours for the taking. With a new Land Rover as your companion, you'll see Adventure wherever you go. Visit your local Land Rover retailer for special offers on the 2019 Range Rover.

Adventure, it's yours for the taking. Land Rover, above and beyond.