After a long hiatus, funnyman Jim Carrey is back.
While the actor has starred in tons of hit films including Liar, Liar , The Mask , Dumb and Dumber , Ace Ventura: Pet Detective , and The Truman Show , he took a long break from Hollywood and he’s now finally revealing why. Over the last few years, Carrey has appeared in a few movies and TV shorts but he didn’t do nearly as much work as he did when he first gained fame in the ’80s and ’90s.
Carrey recently sat down for a wide-ranging interview on the heels of his new Showtime series, Kidding . In the interview, Carrey discussed with the Hollywood Reporter why he was absent from the Hollywood scene for such a long time.
“I just didn’t want to be in the business anymore. I didn’t like what was happening, the corporations taking over and all that. And maybe it’s because I felt pulled toward a different type of creative outlet and I really liked the control of painting — of not having a committee in the way telling me what the idea must be to appeal to a four-quadrant whatever.”
Of course, Carrey is referring to his political cartoons that gained him a ton of attention starting in the 2016 elections. Most of the sketches are of President Donald Trump, and his career in sketching has somewhat rejuvenated his acting career in a way.
Great @LaceyVRose piece on the troubled, talented, brilliant, and bizarre Jim Carrey https://t.co/mVm4kqMcd9
— Brent Lang (@BrentALang) August 15, 2018
And now that he will be starring in the highly-anticipated show Kidding , Carrey says that though he’s back in the spotlight again, it’s not really the same as it was once before.
“I’m not back in the same way. I don’t feel I’m little Jim trying to hang on to a place in the stratosphere anymore — I don’t feel like I’m trying to hold on to anything.”
And of course, with his political sketches being the major or basically the only part of his social media presence, the topic of politics was brought up and according to the interviewer, it was the most animated that Carrey got during the whole interview.
“To watch half the country ignore what is quite obviously right in front of them, I liken it to standing on the railroad tracks cheering for the locomotive that’s about to run you down. ‘Look at it, look how beautiful it is. Man, it’s really fast. It’s getting here quickly.’”
“When it’s all said and done and the Feds finally close in and he hands over the keys to Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago and whatever else he has, there’s going to be a celebration in this country such as has never been seen before. I guarantee it,” he continued.
On Twitter alone, Carrey has amassed over 17 million followers and every few days, he shares some artwork with them. A recent photo of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin earned Carrey a ton of attention with over 29,000 favorites in addition to 7,000 comments. No matter what he’s doing, he’s always striking a conversation and that’s the Jim Carrey who most of us have come to know.
Kidding premieres on Showtime on August 31.