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Enough Rope with Andrew Denton
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They say he lives behind a mask, they say he's the most powerful man in show business, they say…he's the funniest man in the world. Unfortunately none of the people that say these things would be available for this interview so we're going to have to talk to the man instead. Ladies and gentlemen, Mister Jim Carey.
Jim Carrey: That was fantastic.
Andrew Denton: Oh, oh. This is going to be hard.
Jim Carrey: I have to get off, I'm getting off the train now.
Andrew Denton: You're going you're going to morph into me during the interview aren't you?
Jim Carrey: Exactly.
Andrew Denton: This is, ah…
Jim Carrey: This is what's never happened and that's what we're after.
Andrew Denton: You're going to end up as me during the interview.
Jim Carrey: I'm just going to jump right into your soul, yeah.
Andrew Denton: Look I should say, I, alone of my people from Australia, have been sent to meet with you.
Jim Carrey: Really?
Andrew Denton: And, and…
Jim Carrey: You are the representative?
Andrew Denton: I am.
Jim Carrey: I'm so glad. Do you have breadfruit for me?
Andrew Denton: I have gifts for you. I do have gifts.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha…
Andrew Denton: The question they want me to ask…
Jim Carrey: I'm so glad to be talking, speaking straight to Australia at this point.
Andrew Denton: You are welcome.
Jim Carrey: I really honestly…I've been dying to get down there, I've always been fascinated with it but I've never, you know during all these trips, we never seem to be able to get it together to get down there.
Andrew Denton: Why is that?
Jim Carrey: I hear they're amazing. Well, everybody I've met from there is so cool.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know they're just a very cool, hang, like kinda, Canadian you know, it's like that kind of same feel.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Where I grew up and just real people and when I was a kid I was fascinated that the animals were just different there. There's the platypus and the kangaroo and the dingo and koala bear.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know…
Andrew Denton: You know how…
Jim Carrey: QRLMNO.
Andrew Denton: Ah, ha ha, yes. You know half the country's poisonous don't you?
Jim Carrey: Really?
Andrew Denton: Yeah, yeah. No we've got a lot of poisonous…
Jim Carrey: With the snakes and things?
Andrew Denton: All of which…Poisonous snakes we've got em. Spiders.
Jim Carrey: I want to wrestle an alligator.
Andrew Denton: Yeah?
Jim Carrey: A crocodile.
Andrew Denton: Like Steve Irwin?
Jim Carrey: I really do. I want to do that. Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Could you take it?
Jim Carrey: No problem. I swear to God, I want to put on some kind of hat on with a big thing with a stake on the end of it…
Andrew Denton: Yeah, yeah.
Jim Carrey: That hangs in front of the crocodile.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Whatever. That'd be fun.
Andrew Denton: You have a reputation for being a real perfectionist with your comedy. That you'll do take after take after take.
Jim Carrey: And yet I can let this interview go to the dogs.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha, ha…
Jim Carrey: It's amazing.
Andrew Denton: Go bigger.
Jim Carrey: Well I just like to do it you know I mean I got nowhere to go.
Andrew Denton: How do you…
Jim Carrey: So. Ha, ha, ha.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: I just, literally, there's the place I'd rather be more than anywhere in the world so.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: I kind of like to hang out, I like to do it over and over again in case there's some incredibly interesting thing that happens.
Andrew Denton: How do you know when something has reached its funniest point? Because there's a point in which you go that's it, that's right?
Jim Carrey: When they tell me that I have to go home.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha…
Jim Carrey: Sometimes you think you know you've got a right of way and at other times you just keep poking at it, poking at it and you realise later on after 50 takes that you had it on the first take.
Andrew Denton: Yeah, yeah.
Jim Carrey: So it's whatever. I'm sure everybody knows about that sort of thing since me and you came into night and…
Andrew Denton: Your physicality, your ability to do stuff with your body and face, how much control do you have over your face?
Jim Carrey: It's all spasm actually.
Andrew Denton: Really?
Jim Carrey: All of it, yes total spasms, just every once in a while and then they tie them together and post. No. Ah I was ah…when I was a little kid I would stare into the mirror for hours.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: At a time my mother was so worried about it, she was like "you're going to be, you're going to see the devil". She tried to scare me into, you know, and of course that totally…
Andrew Denton: Wow!
Jim Carrey: It's like every kid with a scary movie or something. It's like in there 24 hours a day up to that point. Where is he, where is he?
Andrew Denton: What's the most you can do with your face? Is is it true you can sort of dislocate your bottom jaw?
Jim Carrey: Ah I can if I have to ingest a small barn animal.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: But it really knocks me out. I mean I have to sit in the shade for a few hours.
Andrew Denton: Because I did bring a hampster for you to have a go at.
Jim Carrey: Very, very vulnerable at that moment.
Andrew Denton: Is that right?
Jim Carrey: In the middle of digesting.
Andrew Denton: Yes, it's wrong of me to even think of it.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha.
Andrew Denton: You would actually go on stage sometimes deliberately to piss the audience off. Is there sort of a fine line between comedy and rage?
Jim Carrey: Ah well no. I think it's…comedy is everything. Comedy, see a lot of people say that it's because of pain and all that stuff. I guess we all like try to overcome our pain in certain ways. But to me, I think of comedy as a chance to just be a goof in front of an audience. It's just like the living room. It's the more comfortable you get the more you can just kind of sit back and make the world your living room and everybody has a good time. So it to me it's a joyful thing. It's a way of taking something painful I guess and making a joyful thing.
Andrew Denton: So why?
Jim Carrey: And a way of judging people and ah…
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha, ha..
Jim Carrey: That's the important part, getting back at people.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: So.
Andrew Denton: Why would you piss the audience off?
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha. You're back on that.
Andrew Denton: I…no.
Jim Carrey: No honestly no…interesting, ah, interest. It depends. I was very susceptible to any outward input so I'd go to a movie that would change my personality. I'd see Marlon Brando interviewed by Connie Chong and I'd go in with the wrong attitude and I was just very impressionable. I mean it's…
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: …Kind of searching for an identity anyway so, I'd get there and I would just decide, a minute in, that I was going to instead of entertain the audience I was going to torture them. There were producers in to see me and I'd end up on a table with a broken beer bottle going like, "Come on!", or whatever…and doing a scene from 'From Here to Eternity' and it just was mental, it was mental. I went up six months, every night at the Comedy Store without a plan of what I was going to do and just kind of survived in front of the audience and it was just insane.
Andrew Denton: Wow. Cause.
Jim Carrey: Insane.
Andrew Denton: Andy Kaufman, who you played in 'Man in the Moon'… J Hmm.
Andrew Denton: He was the ultimate in alienating the audience.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: He had. Did you find that sense…
Jim Carrey: I didn't mean to do that though. See, the difference was I would do that right and I'd become the hero of all the comedians.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: They'd line up at the back of the place and watch people walk out and go, "Yeah... I hated that guy", and stuff and then when everybody was gone they'd come up and like lift me on their shoulders kind of figuratively and and say, "Man, you're the best", and "That was incredible, nobody's ever done that before!" And you're the king for a minute and then you get in your car and drive home and cry because ultimately you don't want to do that to people, you know.
Andrew Denton: Is it liberating though, that sense of just going out there and you're basically saying to the audience as well as to yourself, "Hey I don't know what I'm doing now but I'm gonna have fun"?
Jim Carrey: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Denton: It must be fantastic.
Jim Carrey: I don't know. I find as I go along people just want to see you be loose and who you are and comfortable. It's the living room concept, we're going to turn this into our living room and have a blast.
Andrew Denton: Is it true that your parents would ask you…that that if they were feeling down they'd say "Jim cheer us up, make us laugh"?
Jim Carrey: No they never asked me directly but I just always felt like that was my job. I think most comedians, funny people, have sick mums, generally.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: Because it's born out of wanting to make somebody feel better, I think that happens a lot. I used to come into the room naked except for my underwear and be a praying mantis and just go all over the room just curiously touching and feeling things and stuff and my my mother would just roar, she was ill.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And she'd just roll out of bed and try to chase me out of the room.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: Stuff like that.
Andrew Denton: The joy is that though it's more than your job isn't it. It's actually fun for you?
Jim Carrey: Oh it's a blast.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: It's wonderful, man. It's the best job in the world.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: It's really, truly the best job in the world to make people feel good.
Andrew Denton: And your dad would write with you when you were young, would write comedy with you. What kind of a sense of humour did he have?
Jim Carrey: He was really funny.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: A really funny guy. My family…as long as you were being safe, the comedy borderline was pushed. Like for some reason with my family our idea of a good time was when people were coming over for Christmas to my sister's house in the country, we'd see them coming down the road and we'd all put stockings on our heads and get pick axes and things like that and hide in the gutters and stuff like that and wait for them…to drive up and then come out the car. You know that that was our idea of a good time.
Andrew Denton: How far would you push that?
Jim Carrey: Ah, 'til someone died generally.
Andrew Denton: That's good.
Jim Carrey: They had to be buried.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha, ha…
Jim Carrey: Ah, no, it was never, never harmful.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But just always fun and my father was the ringleader. So when I saw him, he was always getting laughs in the living room. So when I saw him doing that I went…I was an amoeba and I could see that that was a cool thing. You know I was saying "Wow!".
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: "That's kinda neat. Being the funny guy."
Andrew Denton: So when you started and and your star rose very quickly despite those early setbacks, when you started to become very successful for your comedy, was that something easy for your father to handle, because that could've been him too, couldn't it?
Jim Carrey: Yeah, well that's the thing. He lived vicariously through me for sure.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Yeah. He was very supportive. But there was never any weirdness or anything in that regard.
Andrew Denton: No.
Jim Carrey: It was just him …it was one of the saddest things I ever had to do was…He used to come down to the comedy clubs all the time from the time I was 17. So at a certain point — I like turned 20 or something like that — and I had to have the talk with my dad and say I just kinda want to hang with guys…
Andrew Denton: Yeah, yeah.
Jim Carrey: My dad, oh yeah sure, oh gosh yeah right sure.
Andrew Denton: Was that hard for you having?
Jim Carrey: Ronnie Dangarfield used to like…
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Love hanging with my dad, too.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: 'Cause my dad had one liners, man, he was just right, he was fast.
Andrew Denton: Wow.
Jim Carrey: He was really fast.
Andrew Denton: So so all your life when you were with him was just click, click, click?
Jim Carrey: Yeah it was like a tag team of comedy. Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Did he have the physical thing as well?
Jim Carrey: Oh yeah, yeah, he was completely animated. A couple of years before he died I was watching him at one time and I just said…my sisters and brother um…"just look at him, just watch him when he's telling a story".
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And he is just literally …you know like this…he's all over the place and he's just a cartoon, but it's all joy just coming out. It's amazing.
Andrew Denton: Did the rest of your family get the humour gene or was it you and your dad?
Jim Carrey: Yeah. No everybody has a really good sense of humour in my family.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know, they're not comedians.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But they…definitely…it's a good audience to gauge things by.
Andrew Denton: Because some of the funniest people are not professionals.
Jim Carrey: I steal from them constantly.
Andrew Denton: Yeah?
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Do they know?
Jim Carrey: Oh yeah.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: Yeah. They're always looking for things that are are familiar to them.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: In the movies. I always do a dadism. There's always something in there.
Andrew Denton: What's a dadism?
Jim Carrey: Well just something that imitates my father, or says something that he would say if I had a kid in the movie I might call him Jasper something.
Andrew Denton: Right.
Jim Carrey: That he calls me or whatever. Certain things I'm always lacing through there it's my kinda nod to the family.
Andrew Denton: He'd call you Jasper?
Jim Carrey: Jasper Nickodemus.
Andrew Denton: Why why…
Jim Carrey: Ah he had a hundred names for me. He was trying to confuse me I think.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha, ha. You never knew who you…
Jim Carrey: Tickling my toes.
Andrew Denton: Was there a dad.
Jim Carrey: Don't get attached to a name you're going to have to move, move quickly.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha…Was there a…
Jim Carrey: He was in the CIA actually.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha, ha…Well you guys did move around and I know you talked about this so many times so I won't…
Jim Carrey: Don't get attached to anybody.
Andrew Denton: You guys ended up living out of a van. Now, because there were very hard times for you…
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: I think you call it your um grapes of wrath period?
Jim Carrey: Yeah, totally.
Andrew Denton: What sort of values did your family instil in you in that time?
Jim Carrey: Ah I guess, I don't know, just that there's nothing really safe. You might as well do what you love to do. I mean, it became painfully obvious that there's no real safety net anywhere.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: So for me, we went to live in the van because we didn't like the job we were doing and what was happening to the family. So we got to the van, we were actually happy. That sounds like the sad part but that was actually the happy part.
Andrew Denton: Was it like the…
Jim Carrey: We just learned that we have to to do what you love even if you starve at it.
Andrew Denton: Was it…travelling around in a van…was that what was that time like?
Jim Carrey: It was okay, it was good. It was like the family was together, we weren't hating anybody and we weren't punching holes in walls.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And stuff at the factory and whatever else went on we were saved. We didn't know where we were going.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But I was doing the comedy at night and stuff so I was just heading off in my Volkswagen down downtown Toronto.
Andrew Denton: Cause I was…
Jim Carrey: Scan up.
Andrew Denton: Was the comedy, what kept body and soul together? How did you survive in those?
Jim Carrey: By the time I was 17 I was actually working professionally.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: As well as doing whatever else we needed to do but…
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But I was working in the comedy clubs and pretty popular and so I was supporting some of my family.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And you that's what you do there. You just take care of people, you take care of your family, take care of what you gotta do.
Andrew Denton: You said that you were very impressionable that you you'd see something and five minutes later.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: You'd be that person. Do you still just suck it in in that zealous way?
Jim Carrey: Oh yeah, it all goes in the computer you know. It's weird. It's like I have to stop. I can't read too much because if I read too much I don't sleep. I read but literally every paragraph becomes some kind of big bit in my head or something that.
Andrew Denton: Wow. So the obvious question here is — I have to put on a serious tone now — so where are you in the middle this?
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha…I'm everywhere, man. All around you, man.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: Ah.
Andrew Denton: Seriously though, I mean, if you are always taking on other people and other things, where are 'you'?
Jim Carrey: I'm an incredibly stable human being. I'm just really smart. Ha, ha, ha…No, I'm a normal guy, I'm a normal person. I just love creativity.
Andrew Denton: Sure.
Jim Carrey: It's like weaving blankets, it's like whatever, it's just what makes me happy when I sit down and do it.
Andrew Denton: A normal guy with an abnormal talent.
Jim Carrey: I'm so not the guy who has to be on by the way, I don't have to be out of my mind, I don't have to win the room. I like to sometimes.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But I don't have to.
Andrew Denton: Well you already have in a way really in your career. You don't have to win it because you've already won it.
Jim Carrey: Yes, but I feel I'm on the edge of, I'm about to humiliate myself big time.
Andrew Denton: Is that right?
Jim Carrey: I once went to Alaska with a couple of guys and we were flying around up there and landing on glaciers and things. One of the guys up there, the bush pilot, said to me…I said "you risk your life every day coming up here to save mountain climbers and doing all this stuff". And he said "Yeah, but you risk public humiliation."
Andrew Denton: What is it like though, at your level? Does it feel like that that every time you go out there you you are being so judged?
Jim Carrey: No. No. I love my life, man. I don't think about stuff. I just love my work, and it's a very weird thing, but I'm like even getting to the point where I can put myself in a place where I can actually enjoy the idea of coming and doing press and interviews and things like that too.
Andrew Denton: Wow.
Jim Carrey: Because it's just a different head space. It's like a looser form or something.
Andrew Denton: Is that a function also of of turning 40? Because you do start to reassess around that age?
Jim Carrey: Who turned 40?
Andrew Denton: Other people, but if you've read of them.
Jim Carrey: I'm 35, man.
Andrew Denton: Is any part of you 40 at all?
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha. Ah no ah…liar. We just were just getting in. Um…I don't know I'm having the time of my life so.
Andrew Denton: Yeah, okay.
Jim Carrey: I feel like I'm 20, so I don't think about it. I'm just having a great time.
Andrew Denton: With 'Man in the Moon' you were famous for getting into the character by being the character on the set.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Now, for 'Bruce Almighty' what do you do to get into the character of being God?
Jim Carrey: Ah, well, I'm not God, fortunately, because I wouldn't know how the hell to go about…ha, ha…I used to do a bit in my act where I said if I was Jesus that the Bible would be a completely different book, re-enacted with sitting on the cross saying, "Wait 'til my Father hears about this!", and stuff like that. Spitting on people. So I don't think I'd make a very good God. Morgan Freeman on the other hand is just excellent at it.
Andrew Denton: Wow.
Jim Carrey: Amazing at it.
Andrew Denton: Mind you…
Jim Carrey: But he can't talk to anybody about it, he's embarrassed about it so.
Andrew Denton: Being God?
Jim Carrey: He's not doing any press because he can't handle it, he can't handle being asked about being God.
Andrew Denton: Yeah I guess it's a hard one on your CV where you go after God.
Jim Carrey: No, I am the flogged human being with the God power. Yeah I'm comfortable with that.
Jim Carrey in 'Bruce Almighty':I've got the power, boom, ohhhh, screaming... it was strong and it was good. I've got the power. Whoa. Music.
Andrew Denton: Have you ever had an inkling of what it would be to be God and I'm not asking that factitiously I'm thinking back to that time where your career absolutely took off that year, '94, and you had all those hit movies and you could pretty much have or do whatever you wanted?
Jim Carrey: No, no, I would never want that responsibility.
Andrew Denton: Yeah?
Jim Carrey: Nooo. No. A lot of what is in the movie is what I kind of believe so it's an extraordinary task. But I don't know how it all works out but there is some kind of power in that regard I mean it really is. I mean my life is just insane with it, it's just psychically …it's just wind up somehow. It's weird.
Andrew Denton: In what way?
Jim Carrey: Well I…like I'll ask my question inside or something like that and the person sitting behind me at the table next to me in the restaurant will answer it in their conversation or whatever like that there's, there's…I pay attention to these things all the time. It's hilarious.
Andrew Denton: You've said many times on the record that you really want to find love and that you'd give it all away for love, would you really give it all away if you found that?
Jim Carrey: I'd give it all away for less than that.
Andrew Denton: Yeah?
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…I might just do it to start over, just to say I did it, I don't know. Ah no, I'm in such a good place with that stuff I'm just having a good time and dating. You know.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: I don't really, I'm not in a place where I need anything to happen, so…
Andrew Denton: What's the thing about…
Jim Carrey: If it does it'd be grand.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: It'd be fantastical, but I'm not…I'm pretty cool.
Andrew Denton: What's the bit about love that you love. Is it that first passionate bit, the courting, the romance, the wild bit or is it the familiarity you know, just sit around eating baked beans in front of the tele on Sunday night?
Jim Carrey: I like to hear them fart and then break out. I hear them fart and break out.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: That's it.
Andrew Denton: That's beautiful.
Jim Carrey: That's what I like to get to.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha…I think women are fantastical. I mean there's really no other reason to be on the planet. Is there?
Andrew Denton: No actually. What's your favourite bit?
Jim Carrey: My favourite bit?
Andrew Denton: Of a woman?
Jim Carrey: Oh, my favourite bit of a woman.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: Ah the part right at the top of the neck.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Ah that's that houses the medulla arbingata. Ha, ha…And if you bite it just in the right way.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You can actually cut a woman's motor functions completely. Ha, ha, ha.
Andrew Denton: At what point…
Jim Carrey: It's the weirdest thing because I've been thinking lately. I was thinking about when we were talking about doing this interview I thought, God I haven't been to Australia and I've just have all these wild fantasies about the Outback and stuff like that.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know there was…what what are some of the animals that lurk there…like crocodiles and…
Andrew Denton: Crocodiles and lots of snakes, red-bellied, black.
Jim Carrey: Yeah, black…you have weird snakes.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And stuff like that I sometimes fantasise and I dream about it that I am watching a lion and I know there's no lions there, but it's lying lion taking down a kangaroo or something, taking a kangaroo down and holding its neck with its teeth and pinning its head to the ground while it does whatever it wants with it. And then suddenly I'm the lion and the kangaroo is kind of…
Andrew Denton: Keep going this is like one of those sex calls that you dream of. I think I'm just going to shut my eyes and listen now, that's fantastic.
Jim Carrey: I might be Natalie Imbruglia.
Andrew Denton: It's still fantastic. Don't stop that's beautiful. If I were a woman and don't think too hard on that, what kind of husband.
Jim Carrey: Now see if I had the power of God you would be and you'd be a fine looking woman.
Andrew Denton: And this interview will go in a very different direction. I don't even want to think about it. What kind of husband would Jim Carrey make?
Jim Carrey: What kind of husband?
Andrew Denton: What kind of husband…
Jim Carrey: Far out. Well you're just trying to cover all the demographics aren't you?
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha…
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha…ah right. Okay.
Andrew Denton: Wait until I get to death.
Jim Carrey: Okay, this is for the downtown crowd.
Andrew Denton: Yeah, yeah.
Jim Carrey: Okay, I would be the kind of husband that you can't get enough of right because he's the kind of guy that when you meet him you just connect and you feel like you've known him for 50 years after five minutes.
Andrew Denton: Hmm mm.
Jim Carrey: He smells great, he smells amazing.
Andrew Denton: Hmm mm.
Jim Carrey: It's like a a meal every time you get near his neck. Ha, ha, ha…
Andrew Denton: There's the neck again.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha. Okay, no and he likes to watch crappy TV.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And so do you. And he eats grilled cheese sandwiches.
Andrew Denton: That's Mister Carrey.
Jim Carrey: That's the kind of husband I'd be.
Andrew Denton: Mister Carrey at home.
Jim Carrey: Grilled cheese sandwiches.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Just a regular guy.
Jim Carrey: Yeah. Lots of laughs and grilled cheese sandwiches.
Andrew Denton: Is the problem you're saying you're dating is the difficulty for you that the dating pool is essentially limited to because of the status of too very famous mega-wealthy sort of needy, over-achieving types.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha, ha. And a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle when she's trying to throw her arms around the world. Busy women are tough, man.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: They're amazing, they're very talented and attractive but it's not that they're never there, so that's a tough thing.
Andrew Denton: But it will be very hard for you to have a relationship with someone who didn't have a career like that because your career would surely swallow them up.
Jim Carrey: Are you trying to depress me?
Andrew Denton: No. No, I'm sorry. Of course not.
Jim Carrey: No. So but basically, Jim, what's it what's it like having no options whatsoever? Well.
Andrew Denton: I'm trying to walk in your shoes.
Jim Carrey: So, Jim, on this side fire, this side rain, where do you fit in? Um, well, let me tell you.
Andrew Denton: I'm sorry.
Jim Carrey: No, no it's fine, I love it.
Andrew Denton: Because it's it's…I see it as the dilemma of the situation.
Jim Carrey: A conundrum.
Andrew Denton: A conundrum's one of the words.
Jim Carrey: Yeah there's a bit of a conundrum there.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: But I don't know, I don't feel like I'm missing anything in my life.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Honestly. I'm needless in the universe. All I need is the love of every Australian.
Andrew Denton: You're getting it right now. Unchannelly.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha…okay.
Andrew Denton: So, when you're in your home which is really nice.
Jim Carrey: I really do want to wrestle an alligator by the way and I know …that's probably one of those things like being Canadians…er igloos.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Or whatever when you go abroad or whatever.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: That people are like…crocodiles, well…yeah like that…yeah there's one on my back right now.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Yeah. I'm carrying, I'm smuggling them.
Andrew Denton: Okay.
Jim Carrey: But I do want to wrestle one. Can you set that up for me?
Andrew Denton: I can! I know Steve Irwin.
Jim Carrey: Really?
Andrew Denton: I do know Steve Irwin.
Jim Carrey: Do you?
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: He's a brave man.
Andrew Denton: He is. He's…
Jim Carrey: He's a very silly man.
Andrew Denton: He is a silly…
Jim Carrey: Very silly, silly man. I love it though. It's only fun when he gets bit so…
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: He has to do it more and more…
Andrew Denton: I know, I know.
Jim Carrey: He won't be recognisable after awhile. He'll just be like a pin cushion, his whole face, just swollen up.
Andrew Denton: The real Jim.
Jim Carrey: Black adder.
Andrew Denton: You should come and wrestle a sea wasp.
Jim Carrey: Black Adder's my best friend. Huh?
Andrew Denton: You should wrestle a sea wasp.
Jim Carrey: A sea wasp?
Andrew Denton: A sea wasp is a giant jellyfish.
Jim Carrey: Yeah, right.
Andrew Denton: And the sting will kill you within a minute.
Jim Carrey: Really?
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: So I have a minute to kill it before it kills me?
Andrew Denton: No you…
Jim Carrey: Or a minute after the sting?
Andrew Denton: You get stung. Yeah. So you've got to kill it pretty much the instant you see it.
Jim Carrey: Mmm. Kill it or like spread it on, you know, toast with some Vegemite?
Andrew Denton: Yeah. You have done your research.
Jim Carrey: Yeahhh, see…
Andrew Denton: Have you ever tried Vegemite?
Jim Carrey: Ah I did actually taste a little bit of Vegemite, yeah.
Andrew Denton: And?
Jim Carrey: And I'm going ah.. did someone lose something from their spencter? Ah, ha, ha, ha. I might have it here, I'll save it for you. Ah, no I didn't enjoy that at all.
Andrew Denton: Really?
Jim Carrey: No I didn't, it was it was like a cruel kind of one of those tricks you play on a kid.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Something lemon. You know it wasn't my favourite…
[Noises.]
But I'm sure it's a wonderful thing if you get used to it.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: You know. If you're breastfed by women who are just cramming it in…
Andrew Denton: Yeah, yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know then you eventually get used to it.
Andrew Denton: We have a lot of bitter people in Australia, unfortunately.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Andrew Denton: That's a very good description of it nonetheless.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Is it true that at your dad's funeral people asked for your autograph?
Jim Carrey: Sure, yeah, yeah.
Andrew Denton: And how did you respond?
Jim Carrey: You know I gave out a few autographs and then I was like okay this is not right, you know.
Andrew Denton: Oh.
Jim Carrey: Can't be this here.
Andrew Denton: What part of your life is normal?
Jim Carrey: I don't know, I mean it's normal for me, it's been my path so I'm on it.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: So it's normal for me. Ah I think about that with my daughter sometimes like how how normal does she think it is but she's used to being my daughter.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: So it's just all where you're coming from. It's been an amazing journey, though. I mean I really do feel like I have gone from Perth to Sydney. No sorry…ah…
Andrew Denton: I'm endeared, trust me. Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Yeah
Jim Carrey: Yeah ah… I'm on a journey you know, so there's been deserts and mountains and all kinds of different stuff and it's fantastic.
Andrew Denton: I just want to a moment or a time in your life where you're at home for instance where just things are…
Jim Carrey: All the time, every single day.
Andrew Denton: Yeah?
Jim Carrey: Yeah every single day. I mean I'd like you to play up the the image of I'm just so eccentric I can't remember, or whatever, but I don't know how I got here. I'm just that crazy.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But I'm not. I'm just a hard working guy, I love what I do, and I go home and I watch crappy TV like everybody else.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Because you make a…
Jim Carrey: I do have a place at the beach so that's pretty grand.
Andrew Denton: Do you surf?
Jim Carrey: I got up a couple of times.
Andrew Denton: Yeah?
Jim Carrey: Yeah, I just started, my daughter's into it so I went out with her on her birthday and we got up and did it a couple of times and I was like right on it. It was amazing. I was incredible.
Andrew Denton: What, just…
Jim Carrey: Okay now I'm exaggerating.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Okay I was just okay at first.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And I just…okay I got up and then now you want to smash cut to like some footage of me surf…
Andrew Denton: That's that's right.
Jim Carrey: On like what looks like a jetty. It was kinda a long board.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: I actually had like a dining set on it.
Andrew Denton: And a butler at the other end.
Jim Carrey: You can't fall off those things.
Andrew Denton: What kind of dad are you?
Jim Carrey: Ah a good dad I think. I think I'm a good dad. You know, I'm there.
Andrew Denton: Are you like most dads are, does your daughter think you're a bit of a dag?
Jim Carrey: Ah you know we have a very cool relationship. She knows that she has to be careful when she brings friends over because I like to scare them. So she invites friends over to watch movies and things like that and I'll just find a way somehow to startle the children. I like to do that.
Andrew Denton: What do you do?
Jim Carrey: Oh well, you know…They watched 'What Lies Beneath' one time at a a birthday party and had all the girls over. I just kind of snuck into the room and waited until that part where she says, 'I know' you know Michelle Pfeiffer says that.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And I walk up behind them and say 'Do you know?' and cake flies everywhere and children scream. It's great. I love it.
Andrew Denton: Is.. that really strikes me as being very much that regardless of Jim Carrey the public figure or the job, you create that comedic response to just make it funny?
Jim Carrey: I like to express myself in every different way, but when I'm coming here today I just think part of me still gets nervous about talking and doing whatever, but the other part of me goes 'none of this going to matter'.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: In a hundred years they'll never remember, it won't matter, so just have fun, let's have a blast.
Andrew Denton: Is the scarier thought for you that you actually would. Do you reach a point where you've stopped being nervous because if your idea of fun is to be out there all the time isn't it a scary thing to actually slow down and become conservative?
Jim Carrey: Ah well it just depends on what you want to hang on to.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: I mean you can be anything you want if you're not hung on to a result. If I wanted to wake up tomorrow and decide to be the Stelic guy or whatever, which probably will never happen.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Folks. But, um, but if I did… some people choose a character to play in life you know and they go out. So ah…I might not be as popular, but it'll be interesting.
Andrew Denton: You talk about having fun with your daughter's friends, like that story about 'What Lies Beneath'. What's the biggest stage on which you've gone out there and really surprised people, where you've had the most fun?
Jim Carrey: Well I'm constantly doing it, when I show up in places it's really hard for me not to get involved in some way. Like when I I went to 'Saturday Night Live' and Fu Fighters were playing on stage and I just couldn't help myself. I had to get up and play my leg with the Fu Fighters and stuff like that. So I got up and they had no idea it was in the middle of the…like Orange Alert in New York, so… the guitarist was looking at me like he had no idea who I was. I was like showing my face so he could see me so he wouldn't whack me with the thing. Stuff like that is so much fun to me.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: I got up with Elton John.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Ah ah…the Aerohad Pond over 20,000 people or something like 15,000. I was backstage and he was kicking everybody out, he was having an audience with people and and before he kicked me out I said, "Well you know need any help singing 'Rocket Man' let me know". Like that. And he went "Oh really, you want to sing back up?" And I said "No!". And he said, "Oh a duet?" I said "Sure, why not?"
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Like that because it seized the day with me.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know what I mean? I'm there and why not, so he goes "Oh. okay get him the lyrics. I said "Gee, you have a jacket?, you know, anything I can wear out there?" So he set me up with one of his leather jackets with Elton glasses and I came out on stage at Aerohad Pond, I'm in the audience first of all because you never know all the lyrics with an Elton John song.
Andrew Denton: No.
Jim Carrey: There's always some one that he packs his bag and he survic…your whole life you're like going, survik…but you never know what it is and you don't care.
Andrew Denton: No.
Jim Carrey: Because it sounds so good, but you don't care. So I'm like sitting there looking at the lyrics of Rocket Man while he's singing Rocket Man…or he's singing Daniel.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And I have to go up next.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And I'm in this gigantic 20,000-person crowd with a little penlight looking and going, 'the salman tattoos'. Is that what he sings? Oh my God, he packed my bags.... like just.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: I'm discovering it at that moment and then he introduced me and the place went crazy.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I went "Oh my God, no wonder these rock stars are friggin' head cases". Anyway so I got out there and sang with them and and it was just a trip, it was so much fun, it was great.
Andrew Denton: Yeah. You say seize.
Jim Carrey: Was that the world's longest answer?
Andrew Denton: No.
Jim Carrey: It had to be.
Andrew Denton: That was fantastic.
Jim Carrey: Really?
Andrew Denton: No, no we've clocked one at 22 and 15 seconds.
Jim Carrey: Really? Hmm.
Andrew Denton: Then.
Jim Carrey: Who was that? Russell Crowe?
Andrew Denton: It was Russell.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha…talkative. Ah ah ah ah ah.
Andrew Denton: Do you know Russ?
Jim Carrey: No I don't.
Andrew Denton: No.
Jim Carrey: No I don't.
Andrew Denton: He wants to fight you.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha…oh that's one ask I'm going to have to take.
Andrew Denton: Yep.
Jim Carrey: Just to do it.
Andrew Denton: We could ah sign.
Jim Carrey: Do you want to arrange that?
Andrew Denton: In Australia?
Jim Carrey: Alright.
Andrew Denton: Before or.
Jim Carrey: Our alligator…one and for all.
Andrew Denton: Which one first?
Jim Carrey: Ah, let me just see how the 'gator goes.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Andrew Denton: You said seize the day and it's it's obvious that the bigger the situation the more fun it is to do something unexpected?
Jim Carrey: Oh yeah. The more uptight the situation, the more the more you need to, absolutely.
Andrew Denton: So.
Jim Carrey: It's a balance, it's a balancing act that's what it is.
Andrew Denton: You must've thought about this. If the day ever came where you met the president of the United States of America…
Jim Carrey: Right.
Andrew Denton: What would you do?
Jim Carrey: What would I do?
Andrew Denton: What would you like to do?
Jim Carrey: What would I like to do? Ah oh gosh, I've just been avoiding that so badly. Um, ha, ha, yeah it's just…What would I do? I'd probably be very diplomatic.
Andrew Denton: Hmm mm.
Jim Carrey: Actually.
Andrew Denton: But the temptation.
Jim Carrey: I'd be disappointingly diplomatic probably for my audience. They'd go "Get 'im, Jim! Do something, man! Grease tags, man!" But there's times when grease tags just don't fit.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And I recognise that.
Andrew Denton: The temptation though. Even.
Jim Carrey: Hey Mister President let's see some grease tags, okay bend over. Welcome to Cell Block D. Sorry. Freeze.
Andrew Denton: Even just to go up to him and say I'm sorry I don't remember your name surely.
Jim Carrey: No, I do have much leverage actually.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: If that's the one thing about doing what I do it's like…I just did a show called 'Colin O'Brien' and I actually called Cambridge and got Stephen Hawking to do a comedy bit with me.
Andrew Denton: No?
Jim Carrey: Yeah. This is what I mean. I mean it's just like the hall pass of being a comedian, you know. And I called up, yeah called up Cambridge, and I just asked him if he would do a bit and I sent him the lines and he said yes, he'd like to do it and recorded a Webcam piece himself for me.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Which was me writing and faxing it to him and his assistant saying "Stephen would like to maybe change a word or two, he thinks it's great".
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But he just wants to maybe change a word or two. I said go for it, go do whatever you want. So he changed the words. The bit was I was explaining ecpeurotic universal theory on the show.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Okay and it's like I'm really into science and he calls me in the middle of it and says don't try to explain it to them, their tiny pea brains cannot possibly grasp the concept and it was amazing and he so he's on there you know basically saying "well I have to go now, I have to I'm watching 'Dumb and Dumber' and marvelling at the pure genius of it. You truly are a genius." Like that, he calls me a genius so I say "No you're a genius", and he says "No you are", "No you are", "No you are, infinity".
Andrew Denton: Ha oh.
Jim Carrey: And I actually got Stephen Hawking to do the bit and it was amazing.
Andrew Denton: You're really into science, what is ecpeur or did you just find this in a dictionary?
Jim Carrey: No, ecpeurotic theory.
Andrew Denton: Which is?
Jim Carrey: It's the brain theory of the universe. It's a different theory than the Big Bang theory.
Andrew Denton: What does it say?
Jim Carrey: Well I'm not exactly versed in this kind of thing.
Andrew Denton: Right.
Jim Carrey: It's actually scientifically…
Andrew Denton: Don't worry you can tell me anything.
Jim Carrey: That's it's basically that we're on this wavelength, part of a brain…like the tissue of a brain.
Andrew Denton: Right.
Jim Carrey: And the different universes, whatever. I can't really explain it.
Andrew Denton: Sure.
Jim Carrey: Ah it's too heady for me.
Andrew Denton: You had Stephen Hawking. As you said we've got Stephen Hawking.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Your life.
Jim Carrey: I know it's crazy.
Andrew Denton: The possibilities of your life…
Jim Carrey: Are endless. Endless in wonderful that's why I feel so blessed. I feel like I've got the hall pass. The hall pass of doom it's like I could go anywhere and hang out with people and…
Andrew Denton: Is there anyone perhaps other than the President, and you could probably ring him. Is there anyone?
Jim Carrey: See guys like that, like Hawking, that excites me.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know what I mean. I mean that's like basically that's Einstein.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know he's the smartest guy in the solar system whatever, you know you can go there.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But it's just fun and I know some day I'll probably hang out and have dinner with him. I had dinner with Henry Kissinger one day and it was like the freakish thing ever.
Andrew Denton: What was it like?
Jim Carrey: I drove to the restaurant and cough and I sat out in my car for ten minutes before I went in, valets knocked, oh just give me a minute. Okay, what am I going to say to Harry Kissinger. Okay I better get a 'USA Today' or something. Ha, ha, ha…glance over the topics, the headlines, briefly. But it was so comfortable. But that's what he's good at I suppose is making people feel comfortable. But he was so not pretentious and just completely open and a complete Ace fan.
Andrew Denton: What did you talk about?
Jim Carrey: He wanted to talk about movies mostly.
Andrew Denton: Of course.
Jim Carrey: And then we talked about Nixon.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: We talked about Nixon for a long time. Talked about how he thought Nixon was just it was just kind of a sad story because Nixon just wanted to be liked, but he couldn't get out of his own way.
Andrew Denton: Right.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Did he give you any insights into the Nixon White House that surprised you?
Jim Carrey: He told me that Dick…ha, ha, ha…likes the ladies. No.
Andrew Denton: No really?
Jim Carrey: No I don't know.
Andrew Denton: Not a string of women haven't come out and said.
Jim Carrey: He didn't tell me anything extraordinary. He told me one thing that's kind of extraordinary, but I don't think I can say it on the air, so. He told me one thing that I can't divulge to you.
Andrew Denton: Could you perhaps do a mime of it?
Jim Carrey: No. Ah no that has nothing to do with it. It's more military, military secret. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Andrew Denton: Wow. You've got a military secret. I'm really scared now.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha, ha, yeah Henry just gave me a few military secrets.
Andrew Denton: Yeah that's right, but don't tell anyone.
Jim Carrey: No, really, off camera.
Andrew Denton: Mmm. I understand. And you can trust me with it.
Jim Carrey: No problem.
Andrew Denton: You.
Jim Carrey: I saw him this close to Jan.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: I saw him this close to Jan. I've gotta tell you if I found all those I just want to have a party one time when I find in the like the tabloids I just want to invite the sources that are close to me.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Because that would be a huge party of people I don't know.
Andrew Denton: There's talk that you might be making a film with Nicole Kidman called 'Dog Days', does that prospect excite you?
Jim Carrey: It's an idea that's out there. I think we're talking about a couple of different things. But she's great, she's an amazing person. Yeah. So I'd love to work with her, it'd be great, yeah.
Andrew Denton: You're a powerful man, you're a powerful man.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, geez.
Andrew Denton: No, no, no you're…I mean you're within your industry you're very powerful?
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: You've got a very powerful…
Jim Carrey: Yeah. Oh like I could chop some I could chop some heads. Sure.
Andrew Denton: Well you gross a 100 million, or your films do every time they go up pretty much which is power in this industry. Is it easy though when you're you're wielding a lot of power to to hurt people around you without realising you're doing that?
Jim Carrey: No, I have such a great gang around me. My team is incredibly intuitive and very real and very centred and I have a lot of different voices, a lot of different…um, you know…like, I have my own team of analysts that go like "you're a little to the left", you know, or whatever.
Andrew Denton: So there's someone in your life who can say to you, Jim that sucks?
Jim Carrey: Yeah. Sure, sure. Mostly I do it, but definitely I have people…I have great barometers around me and and just really good people. Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Jim I hope you do come to Australia, when you do I'm happy to put you up in my place.
Jim Carrey: Yeah?
Andrew Denton: I can arrange the crocodiles.
Jim Carrey: Crocodiles. Good.
Andrew Denton: I can arrange Russell.
Jim Carrey: Yeah. Now is that something everybody does when they get off the plane?
Andrew Denton: Fight Russell?
Jim Carrey: No, ha, ha, ha. The crocodiles? Go right for that?
Andrew Denton: No, no.
Jim Carrey: Is Steve Irwin able to like walk the streets? Do people like throw cats on him when he has no shirt on?
Andrew Denton: I th…
Jim Carrey: I think he should do like 'Jackass'. Jump into the whole 'Jackass' thing, but you know.
Andrew Denton: Steve Irwin's 'Jackass'?
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: It can all be arranged.
Jim Carrey: No he's amazing actually.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: He's amazing. I would like to meet him.
Andrew Denton: That can be arranged, too.
Jim Carrey: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Denton: You've got no excuses.
Jim Carrey: Then I'd like to take that power of God and change him QLMNO and then an arm and a leg.
Andrew Denton: I do. Going back to the next thing. It's really been a pleasure. Thank you very much. Thanks for being on Australian television.
Jim Carrey: Oh I'm so happy. I'm so happy to be here two dimensionally, can't wait to spike it up a bit.
Andrew Denton: As the ambassador for my people, my nation salutes you.
Jim Carrey: Cool, man.
Andrew Denton: Jim Carrey, thank you.
Jim Carrey: Thanks, so much.
Andrew Denton: Thanks a lot.
Jim Carrey: Alright.
Andrew Denton: You got the Nixon handshake?
Jim Carrey: Oh oh yeah…exactly, I'm scoring points here.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Right now.
Andrew Denton: You can tell me about the Kissinger thing now.
Jim Carrey: Okay. Right. Yeah. Well what it is, is he has a mall.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And it's shaped like Margaret Thatcher you know.
Jim Carrey: That was fantastic.
Andrew Denton: Oh, oh. This is going to be hard.
Jim Carrey: I have to get off, I'm getting off the train now.
Andrew Denton: You're going you're going to morph into me during the interview aren't you?
Jim Carrey: Exactly.
Andrew Denton: This is, ah…
Jim Carrey: This is what's never happened and that's what we're after.
Andrew Denton: You're going to end up as me during the interview.
Jim Carrey: I'm just going to jump right into your soul, yeah.
Andrew Denton: Look I should say, I, alone of my people from Australia, have been sent to meet with you.
Jim Carrey: Really?
Andrew Denton: And, and…
Jim Carrey: You are the representative?
Andrew Denton: I am.
Jim Carrey: I'm so glad. Do you have breadfruit for me?
Andrew Denton: I have gifts for you. I do have gifts.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha…
Andrew Denton: The question they want me to ask…
Jim Carrey: I'm so glad to be talking, speaking straight to Australia at this point.
Andrew Denton: You are welcome.
Jim Carrey: I really honestly…I've been dying to get down there, I've always been fascinated with it but I've never, you know during all these trips, we never seem to be able to get it together to get down there.
Andrew Denton: Why is that?
Jim Carrey: I hear they're amazing. Well, everybody I've met from there is so cool.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know they're just a very cool, hang, like kinda, Canadian you know, it's like that kind of same feel.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Where I grew up and just real people and when I was a kid I was fascinated that the animals were just different there. There's the platypus and the kangaroo and the dingo and koala bear.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know…
Andrew Denton: You know how…
Jim Carrey: QRLMNO.
Andrew Denton: Ah, ha ha, yes. You know half the country's poisonous don't you?
Jim Carrey: Really?
Andrew Denton: Yeah, yeah. No we've got a lot of poisonous…
Jim Carrey: With the snakes and things?
Andrew Denton: All of which…Poisonous snakes we've got em. Spiders.
Jim Carrey: I want to wrestle an alligator.
Andrew Denton: Yeah?
Jim Carrey: A crocodile.
Andrew Denton: Like Steve Irwin?
Jim Carrey: I really do. I want to do that. Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Could you take it?
Jim Carrey: No problem. I swear to God, I want to put on some kind of hat on with a big thing with a stake on the end of it…
Andrew Denton: Yeah, yeah.
Jim Carrey: That hangs in front of the crocodile.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Whatever. That'd be fun.
Andrew Denton: You have a reputation for being a real perfectionist with your comedy. That you'll do take after take after take.
Jim Carrey: And yet I can let this interview go to the dogs.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha, ha…
Jim Carrey: It's amazing.
Andrew Denton: Go bigger.
Jim Carrey: Well I just like to do it you know I mean I got nowhere to go.
Andrew Denton: How do you…
Jim Carrey: So. Ha, ha, ha.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: I just, literally, there's the place I'd rather be more than anywhere in the world so.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: I kind of like to hang out, I like to do it over and over again in case there's some incredibly interesting thing that happens.
Andrew Denton: How do you know when something has reached its funniest point? Because there's a point in which you go that's it, that's right?
Jim Carrey: When they tell me that I have to go home.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha…
Jim Carrey: Sometimes you think you know you've got a right of way and at other times you just keep poking at it, poking at it and you realise later on after 50 takes that you had it on the first take.
Andrew Denton: Yeah, yeah.
Jim Carrey: So it's whatever. I'm sure everybody knows about that sort of thing since me and you came into night and…
Andrew Denton: Your physicality, your ability to do stuff with your body and face, how much control do you have over your face?
Jim Carrey: It's all spasm actually.
Andrew Denton: Really?
Jim Carrey: All of it, yes total spasms, just every once in a while and then they tie them together and post. No. Ah I was ah…when I was a little kid I would stare into the mirror for hours.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: At a time my mother was so worried about it, she was like "you're going to be, you're going to see the devil". She tried to scare me into, you know, and of course that totally…
Andrew Denton: Wow!
Jim Carrey: It's like every kid with a scary movie or something. It's like in there 24 hours a day up to that point. Where is he, where is he?
Andrew Denton: What's the most you can do with your face? Is is it true you can sort of dislocate your bottom jaw?
Jim Carrey: Ah I can if I have to ingest a small barn animal.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: But it really knocks me out. I mean I have to sit in the shade for a few hours.
Andrew Denton: Because I did bring a hampster for you to have a go at.
Jim Carrey: Very, very vulnerable at that moment.
Andrew Denton: Is that right?
Jim Carrey: In the middle of digesting.
Andrew Denton: Yes, it's wrong of me to even think of it.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha.
Andrew Denton: You would actually go on stage sometimes deliberately to piss the audience off. Is there sort of a fine line between comedy and rage?
Jim Carrey: Ah well no. I think it's…comedy is everything. Comedy, see a lot of people say that it's because of pain and all that stuff. I guess we all like try to overcome our pain in certain ways. But to me, I think of comedy as a chance to just be a goof in front of an audience. It's just like the living room. It's the more comfortable you get the more you can just kind of sit back and make the world your living room and everybody has a good time. So it to me it's a joyful thing. It's a way of taking something painful I guess and making a joyful thing.
Andrew Denton: So why?
Jim Carrey: And a way of judging people and ah…
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha, ha..
Jim Carrey: That's the important part, getting back at people.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: So.
Andrew Denton: Why would you piss the audience off?
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha. You're back on that.
Andrew Denton: I…no.
Jim Carrey: No honestly no…interesting, ah, interest. It depends. I was very susceptible to any outward input so I'd go to a movie that would change my personality. I'd see Marlon Brando interviewed by Connie Chong and I'd go in with the wrong attitude and I was just very impressionable. I mean it's…
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: …Kind of searching for an identity anyway so, I'd get there and I would just decide, a minute in, that I was going to instead of entertain the audience I was going to torture them. There were producers in to see me and I'd end up on a table with a broken beer bottle going like, "Come on!", or whatever…and doing a scene from 'From Here to Eternity' and it just was mental, it was mental. I went up six months, every night at the Comedy Store without a plan of what I was going to do and just kind of survived in front of the audience and it was just insane.
Andrew Denton: Wow. Cause.
Jim Carrey: Insane.
Andrew Denton: Andy Kaufman, who you played in 'Man in the Moon'… J Hmm.
Andrew Denton: He was the ultimate in alienating the audience.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: He had. Did you find that sense…
Jim Carrey: I didn't mean to do that though. See, the difference was I would do that right and I'd become the hero of all the comedians.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: They'd line up at the back of the place and watch people walk out and go, "Yeah... I hated that guy", and stuff and then when everybody was gone they'd come up and like lift me on their shoulders kind of figuratively and and say, "Man, you're the best", and "That was incredible, nobody's ever done that before!" And you're the king for a minute and then you get in your car and drive home and cry because ultimately you don't want to do that to people, you know.
Andrew Denton: Is it liberating though, that sense of just going out there and you're basically saying to the audience as well as to yourself, "Hey I don't know what I'm doing now but I'm gonna have fun"?
Jim Carrey: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Denton: It must be fantastic.
Jim Carrey: I don't know. I find as I go along people just want to see you be loose and who you are and comfortable. It's the living room concept, we're going to turn this into our living room and have a blast.
Andrew Denton: Is it true that your parents would ask you…that that if they were feeling down they'd say "Jim cheer us up, make us laugh"?
Jim Carrey: No they never asked me directly but I just always felt like that was my job. I think most comedians, funny people, have sick mums, generally.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: Because it's born out of wanting to make somebody feel better, I think that happens a lot. I used to come into the room naked except for my underwear and be a praying mantis and just go all over the room just curiously touching and feeling things and stuff and my my mother would just roar, she was ill.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And she'd just roll out of bed and try to chase me out of the room.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: Stuff like that.
Andrew Denton: The joy is that though it's more than your job isn't it. It's actually fun for you?
Jim Carrey: Oh it's a blast.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: It's wonderful, man. It's the best job in the world.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: It's really, truly the best job in the world to make people feel good.
Andrew Denton: And your dad would write with you when you were young, would write comedy with you. What kind of a sense of humour did he have?
Jim Carrey: He was really funny.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: A really funny guy. My family…as long as you were being safe, the comedy borderline was pushed. Like for some reason with my family our idea of a good time was when people were coming over for Christmas to my sister's house in the country, we'd see them coming down the road and we'd all put stockings on our heads and get pick axes and things like that and hide in the gutters and stuff like that and wait for them…to drive up and then come out the car. You know that that was our idea of a good time.
Andrew Denton: How far would you push that?
Jim Carrey: Ah, 'til someone died generally.
Andrew Denton: That's good.
Jim Carrey: They had to be buried.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha, ha…
Jim Carrey: Ah, no, it was never, never harmful.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But just always fun and my father was the ringleader. So when I saw him, he was always getting laughs in the living room. So when I saw him doing that I went…I was an amoeba and I could see that that was a cool thing. You know I was saying "Wow!".
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: "That's kinda neat. Being the funny guy."
Andrew Denton: So when you started and and your star rose very quickly despite those early setbacks, when you started to become very successful for your comedy, was that something easy for your father to handle, because that could've been him too, couldn't it?
Jim Carrey: Yeah, well that's the thing. He lived vicariously through me for sure.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Yeah. He was very supportive. But there was never any weirdness or anything in that regard.
Andrew Denton: No.
Jim Carrey: It was just him …it was one of the saddest things I ever had to do was…He used to come down to the comedy clubs all the time from the time I was 17. So at a certain point — I like turned 20 or something like that — and I had to have the talk with my dad and say I just kinda want to hang with guys…
Andrew Denton: Yeah, yeah.
Jim Carrey: My dad, oh yeah sure, oh gosh yeah right sure.
Andrew Denton: Was that hard for you having?
Jim Carrey: Ronnie Dangarfield used to like…
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Love hanging with my dad, too.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: 'Cause my dad had one liners, man, he was just right, he was fast.
Andrew Denton: Wow.
Jim Carrey: He was really fast.
Andrew Denton: So so all your life when you were with him was just click, click, click?
Jim Carrey: Yeah it was like a tag team of comedy. Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Did he have the physical thing as well?
Jim Carrey: Oh yeah, yeah, he was completely animated. A couple of years before he died I was watching him at one time and I just said…my sisters and brother um…"just look at him, just watch him when he's telling a story".
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And he is just literally …you know like this…he's all over the place and he's just a cartoon, but it's all joy just coming out. It's amazing.
Andrew Denton: Did the rest of your family get the humour gene or was it you and your dad?
Jim Carrey: Yeah. No everybody has a really good sense of humour in my family.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know, they're not comedians.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But they…definitely…it's a good audience to gauge things by.
Andrew Denton: Because some of the funniest people are not professionals.
Jim Carrey: I steal from them constantly.
Andrew Denton: Yeah?
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Do they know?
Jim Carrey: Oh yeah.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: Yeah. They're always looking for things that are are familiar to them.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: In the movies. I always do a dadism. There's always something in there.
Andrew Denton: What's a dadism?
Jim Carrey: Well just something that imitates my father, or says something that he would say if I had a kid in the movie I might call him Jasper something.
Andrew Denton: Right.
Jim Carrey: That he calls me or whatever. Certain things I'm always lacing through there it's my kinda nod to the family.
Andrew Denton: He'd call you Jasper?
Jim Carrey: Jasper Nickodemus.
Andrew Denton: Why why…
Jim Carrey: Ah he had a hundred names for me. He was trying to confuse me I think.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha, ha. You never knew who you…
Jim Carrey: Tickling my toes.
Andrew Denton: Was there a dad.
Jim Carrey: Don't get attached to a name you're going to have to move, move quickly.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha…Was there a…
Jim Carrey: He was in the CIA actually.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha, ha…Well you guys did move around and I know you talked about this so many times so I won't…
Jim Carrey: Don't get attached to anybody.
Andrew Denton: You guys ended up living out of a van. Now, because there were very hard times for you…
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: I think you call it your um grapes of wrath period?
Jim Carrey: Yeah, totally.
Andrew Denton: What sort of values did your family instil in you in that time?
Jim Carrey: Ah I guess, I don't know, just that there's nothing really safe. You might as well do what you love to do. I mean, it became painfully obvious that there's no real safety net anywhere.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: So for me, we went to live in the van because we didn't like the job we were doing and what was happening to the family. So we got to the van, we were actually happy. That sounds like the sad part but that was actually the happy part.
Andrew Denton: Was it like the…
Jim Carrey: We just learned that we have to to do what you love even if you starve at it.
Andrew Denton: Was it…travelling around in a van…was that what was that time like?
Jim Carrey: It was okay, it was good. It was like the family was together, we weren't hating anybody and we weren't punching holes in walls.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And stuff at the factory and whatever else went on we were saved. We didn't know where we were going.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But I was doing the comedy at night and stuff so I was just heading off in my Volkswagen down downtown Toronto.
Andrew Denton: Cause I was…
Jim Carrey: Scan up.
Andrew Denton: Was the comedy, what kept body and soul together? How did you survive in those?
Jim Carrey: By the time I was 17 I was actually working professionally.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: As well as doing whatever else we needed to do but…
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But I was working in the comedy clubs and pretty popular and so I was supporting some of my family.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And you that's what you do there. You just take care of people, you take care of your family, take care of what you gotta do.
Andrew Denton: You said that you were very impressionable that you you'd see something and five minutes later.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: You'd be that person. Do you still just suck it in in that zealous way?
Jim Carrey: Oh yeah, it all goes in the computer you know. It's weird. It's like I have to stop. I can't read too much because if I read too much I don't sleep. I read but literally every paragraph becomes some kind of big bit in my head or something that.
Andrew Denton: Wow. So the obvious question here is — I have to put on a serious tone now — so where are you in the middle this?
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha…I'm everywhere, man. All around you, man.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: Ah.
Andrew Denton: Seriously though, I mean, if you are always taking on other people and other things, where are 'you'?
Jim Carrey: I'm an incredibly stable human being. I'm just really smart. Ha, ha, ha…No, I'm a normal guy, I'm a normal person. I just love creativity.
Andrew Denton: Sure.
Jim Carrey: It's like weaving blankets, it's like whatever, it's just what makes me happy when I sit down and do it.
Andrew Denton: A normal guy with an abnormal talent.
Jim Carrey: I'm so not the guy who has to be on by the way, I don't have to be out of my mind, I don't have to win the room. I like to sometimes.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But I don't have to.
Andrew Denton: Well you already have in a way really in your career. You don't have to win it because you've already won it.
Jim Carrey: Yes, but I feel I'm on the edge of, I'm about to humiliate myself big time.
Andrew Denton: Is that right?
Jim Carrey: I once went to Alaska with a couple of guys and we were flying around up there and landing on glaciers and things. One of the guys up there, the bush pilot, said to me…I said "you risk your life every day coming up here to save mountain climbers and doing all this stuff". And he said "Yeah, but you risk public humiliation."
Andrew Denton: What is it like though, at your level? Does it feel like that that every time you go out there you you are being so judged?
Jim Carrey: No. No. I love my life, man. I don't think about stuff. I just love my work, and it's a very weird thing, but I'm like even getting to the point where I can put myself in a place where I can actually enjoy the idea of coming and doing press and interviews and things like that too.
Andrew Denton: Wow.
Jim Carrey: Because it's just a different head space. It's like a looser form or something.
Andrew Denton: Is that a function also of of turning 40? Because you do start to reassess around that age?
Jim Carrey: Who turned 40?
Andrew Denton: Other people, but if you've read of them.
Jim Carrey: I'm 35, man.
Andrew Denton: Is any part of you 40 at all?
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha. Ah no ah…liar. We just were just getting in. Um…I don't know I'm having the time of my life so.
Andrew Denton: Yeah, okay.
Jim Carrey: I feel like I'm 20, so I don't think about it. I'm just having a great time.
Andrew Denton: With 'Man in the Moon' you were famous for getting into the character by being the character on the set.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Now, for 'Bruce Almighty' what do you do to get into the character of being God?
Jim Carrey: Ah, well, I'm not God, fortunately, because I wouldn't know how the hell to go about…ha, ha…I used to do a bit in my act where I said if I was Jesus that the Bible would be a completely different book, re-enacted with sitting on the cross saying, "Wait 'til my Father hears about this!", and stuff like that. Spitting on people. So I don't think I'd make a very good God. Morgan Freeman on the other hand is just excellent at it.
Andrew Denton: Wow.
Jim Carrey: Amazing at it.
Andrew Denton: Mind you…
Jim Carrey: But he can't talk to anybody about it, he's embarrassed about it so.
Andrew Denton: Being God?
Jim Carrey: He's not doing any press because he can't handle it, he can't handle being asked about being God.
Andrew Denton: Yeah I guess it's a hard one on your CV where you go after God.
Jim Carrey: No, I am the flogged human being with the God power. Yeah I'm comfortable with that.
Jim Carrey in 'Bruce Almighty':I've got the power, boom, ohhhh, screaming... it was strong and it was good. I've got the power. Whoa. Music.
Andrew Denton: Have you ever had an inkling of what it would be to be God and I'm not asking that factitiously I'm thinking back to that time where your career absolutely took off that year, '94, and you had all those hit movies and you could pretty much have or do whatever you wanted?
Jim Carrey: No, no, I would never want that responsibility.
Andrew Denton: Yeah?
Jim Carrey: Nooo. No. A lot of what is in the movie is what I kind of believe so it's an extraordinary task. But I don't know how it all works out but there is some kind of power in that regard I mean it really is. I mean my life is just insane with it, it's just psychically …it's just wind up somehow. It's weird.
Andrew Denton: In what way?
Jim Carrey: Well I…like I'll ask my question inside or something like that and the person sitting behind me at the table next to me in the restaurant will answer it in their conversation or whatever like that there's, there's…I pay attention to these things all the time. It's hilarious.
Andrew Denton: You've said many times on the record that you really want to find love and that you'd give it all away for love, would you really give it all away if you found that?
Jim Carrey: I'd give it all away for less than that.
Andrew Denton: Yeah?
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…I might just do it to start over, just to say I did it, I don't know. Ah no, I'm in such a good place with that stuff I'm just having a good time and dating. You know.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: I don't really, I'm not in a place where I need anything to happen, so…
Andrew Denton: What's the thing about…
Jim Carrey: If it does it'd be grand.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: It'd be fantastical, but I'm not…I'm pretty cool.
Andrew Denton: What's the bit about love that you love. Is it that first passionate bit, the courting, the romance, the wild bit or is it the familiarity you know, just sit around eating baked beans in front of the tele on Sunday night?
Jim Carrey: I like to hear them fart and then break out. I hear them fart and break out.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: That's it.
Andrew Denton: That's beautiful.
Jim Carrey: That's what I like to get to.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha…I think women are fantastical. I mean there's really no other reason to be on the planet. Is there?
Andrew Denton: No actually. What's your favourite bit?
Jim Carrey: My favourite bit?
Andrew Denton: Of a woman?
Jim Carrey: Oh, my favourite bit of a woman.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: Ah the part right at the top of the neck.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Ah that's that houses the medulla arbingata. Ha, ha…And if you bite it just in the right way.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You can actually cut a woman's motor functions completely. Ha, ha, ha.
Andrew Denton: At what point…
Jim Carrey: It's the weirdest thing because I've been thinking lately. I was thinking about when we were talking about doing this interview I thought, God I haven't been to Australia and I've just have all these wild fantasies about the Outback and stuff like that.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know there was…what what are some of the animals that lurk there…like crocodiles and…
Andrew Denton: Crocodiles and lots of snakes, red-bellied, black.
Jim Carrey: Yeah, black…you have weird snakes.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And stuff like that I sometimes fantasise and I dream about it that I am watching a lion and I know there's no lions there, but it's lying lion taking down a kangaroo or something, taking a kangaroo down and holding its neck with its teeth and pinning its head to the ground while it does whatever it wants with it. And then suddenly I'm the lion and the kangaroo is kind of…
Andrew Denton: Keep going this is like one of those sex calls that you dream of. I think I'm just going to shut my eyes and listen now, that's fantastic.
Jim Carrey: I might be Natalie Imbruglia.
Andrew Denton: It's still fantastic. Don't stop that's beautiful. If I were a woman and don't think too hard on that, what kind of husband.
Jim Carrey: Now see if I had the power of God you would be and you'd be a fine looking woman.
Andrew Denton: And this interview will go in a very different direction. I don't even want to think about it. What kind of husband would Jim Carrey make?
Jim Carrey: What kind of husband?
Andrew Denton: What kind of husband…
Jim Carrey: Far out. Well you're just trying to cover all the demographics aren't you?
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha…
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha…ah right. Okay.
Andrew Denton: Wait until I get to death.
Jim Carrey: Okay, this is for the downtown crowd.
Andrew Denton: Yeah, yeah.
Jim Carrey: Okay, I would be the kind of husband that you can't get enough of right because he's the kind of guy that when you meet him you just connect and you feel like you've known him for 50 years after five minutes.
Andrew Denton: Hmm mm.
Jim Carrey: He smells great, he smells amazing.
Andrew Denton: Hmm mm.
Jim Carrey: It's like a a meal every time you get near his neck. Ha, ha, ha…
Andrew Denton: There's the neck again.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha. Okay, no and he likes to watch crappy TV.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And so do you. And he eats grilled cheese sandwiches.
Andrew Denton: That's Mister Carrey.
Jim Carrey: That's the kind of husband I'd be.
Andrew Denton: Mister Carrey at home.
Jim Carrey: Grilled cheese sandwiches.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Just a regular guy.
Jim Carrey: Yeah. Lots of laughs and grilled cheese sandwiches.
Andrew Denton: Is the problem you're saying you're dating is the difficulty for you that the dating pool is essentially limited to because of the status of too very famous mega-wealthy sort of needy, over-achieving types.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha, ha. And a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle when she's trying to throw her arms around the world. Busy women are tough, man.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: They're amazing, they're very talented and attractive but it's not that they're never there, so that's a tough thing.
Andrew Denton: But it will be very hard for you to have a relationship with someone who didn't have a career like that because your career would surely swallow them up.
Jim Carrey: Are you trying to depress me?
Andrew Denton: No. No, I'm sorry. Of course not.
Jim Carrey: No. So but basically, Jim, what's it what's it like having no options whatsoever? Well.
Andrew Denton: I'm trying to walk in your shoes.
Jim Carrey: So, Jim, on this side fire, this side rain, where do you fit in? Um, well, let me tell you.
Andrew Denton: I'm sorry.
Jim Carrey: No, no it's fine, I love it.
Andrew Denton: Because it's it's…I see it as the dilemma of the situation.
Jim Carrey: A conundrum.
Andrew Denton: A conundrum's one of the words.
Jim Carrey: Yeah there's a bit of a conundrum there.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: But I don't know, I don't feel like I'm missing anything in my life.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Honestly. I'm needless in the universe. All I need is the love of every Australian.
Andrew Denton: You're getting it right now. Unchannelly.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha…okay.
Andrew Denton: So, when you're in your home which is really nice.
Jim Carrey: I really do want to wrestle an alligator by the way and I know …that's probably one of those things like being Canadians…er igloos.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Or whatever when you go abroad or whatever.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: That people are like…crocodiles, well…yeah like that…yeah there's one on my back right now.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Yeah. I'm carrying, I'm smuggling them.
Andrew Denton: Okay.
Jim Carrey: But I do want to wrestle one. Can you set that up for me?
Andrew Denton: I can! I know Steve Irwin.
Jim Carrey: Really?
Andrew Denton: I do know Steve Irwin.
Jim Carrey: Do you?
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: He's a brave man.
Andrew Denton: He is. He's…
Jim Carrey: He's a very silly man.
Andrew Denton: He is a silly…
Jim Carrey: Very silly, silly man. I love it though. It's only fun when he gets bit so…
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: He has to do it more and more…
Andrew Denton: I know, I know.
Jim Carrey: He won't be recognisable after awhile. He'll just be like a pin cushion, his whole face, just swollen up.
Andrew Denton: The real Jim.
Jim Carrey: Black adder.
Andrew Denton: You should come and wrestle a sea wasp.
Jim Carrey: Black Adder's my best friend. Huh?
Andrew Denton: You should wrestle a sea wasp.
Jim Carrey: A sea wasp?
Andrew Denton: A sea wasp is a giant jellyfish.
Jim Carrey: Yeah, right.
Andrew Denton: And the sting will kill you within a minute.
Jim Carrey: Really?
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: So I have a minute to kill it before it kills me?
Andrew Denton: No you…
Jim Carrey: Or a minute after the sting?
Andrew Denton: You get stung. Yeah. So you've got to kill it pretty much the instant you see it.
Jim Carrey: Mmm. Kill it or like spread it on, you know, toast with some Vegemite?
Andrew Denton: Yeah. You have done your research.
Jim Carrey: Yeahhh, see…
Andrew Denton: Have you ever tried Vegemite?
Jim Carrey: Ah I did actually taste a little bit of Vegemite, yeah.
Andrew Denton: And?
Jim Carrey: And I'm going ah.. did someone lose something from their spencter? Ah, ha, ha, ha. I might have it here, I'll save it for you. Ah, no I didn't enjoy that at all.
Andrew Denton: Really?
Jim Carrey: No I didn't, it was it was like a cruel kind of one of those tricks you play on a kid.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Something lemon. You know it wasn't my favourite…
[Noises.]
But I'm sure it's a wonderful thing if you get used to it.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: You know. If you're breastfed by women who are just cramming it in…
Andrew Denton: Yeah, yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know then you eventually get used to it.
Andrew Denton: We have a lot of bitter people in Australia, unfortunately.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Andrew Denton: That's a very good description of it nonetheless.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Is it true that at your dad's funeral people asked for your autograph?
Jim Carrey: Sure, yeah, yeah.
Andrew Denton: And how did you respond?
Jim Carrey: You know I gave out a few autographs and then I was like okay this is not right, you know.
Andrew Denton: Oh.
Jim Carrey: Can't be this here.
Andrew Denton: What part of your life is normal?
Jim Carrey: I don't know, I mean it's normal for me, it's been my path so I'm on it.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: So it's normal for me. Ah I think about that with my daughter sometimes like how how normal does she think it is but she's used to being my daughter.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: So it's just all where you're coming from. It's been an amazing journey, though. I mean I really do feel like I have gone from Perth to Sydney. No sorry…ah…
Andrew Denton: I'm endeared, trust me. Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Yeah
Jim Carrey: Yeah ah… I'm on a journey you know, so there's been deserts and mountains and all kinds of different stuff and it's fantastic.
Andrew Denton: I just want to a moment or a time in your life where you're at home for instance where just things are…
Jim Carrey: All the time, every single day.
Andrew Denton: Yeah?
Jim Carrey: Yeah every single day. I mean I'd like you to play up the the image of I'm just so eccentric I can't remember, or whatever, but I don't know how I got here. I'm just that crazy.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But I'm not. I'm just a hard working guy, I love what I do, and I go home and I watch crappy TV like everybody else.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Because you make a…
Jim Carrey: I do have a place at the beach so that's pretty grand.
Andrew Denton: Do you surf?
Jim Carrey: I got up a couple of times.
Andrew Denton: Yeah?
Jim Carrey: Yeah, I just started, my daughter's into it so I went out with her on her birthday and we got up and did it a couple of times and I was like right on it. It was amazing. I was incredible.
Andrew Denton: What, just…
Jim Carrey: Okay now I'm exaggerating.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Okay I was just okay at first.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And I just…okay I got up and then now you want to smash cut to like some footage of me surf…
Andrew Denton: That's that's right.
Jim Carrey: On like what looks like a jetty. It was kinda a long board.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: I actually had like a dining set on it.
Andrew Denton: And a butler at the other end.
Jim Carrey: You can't fall off those things.
Andrew Denton: What kind of dad are you?
Jim Carrey: Ah a good dad I think. I think I'm a good dad. You know, I'm there.
Andrew Denton: Are you like most dads are, does your daughter think you're a bit of a dag?
Jim Carrey: Ah you know we have a very cool relationship. She knows that she has to be careful when she brings friends over because I like to scare them. So she invites friends over to watch movies and things like that and I'll just find a way somehow to startle the children. I like to do that.
Andrew Denton: What do you do?
Jim Carrey: Oh well, you know…They watched 'What Lies Beneath' one time at a a birthday party and had all the girls over. I just kind of snuck into the room and waited until that part where she says, 'I know' you know Michelle Pfeiffer says that.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And I walk up behind them and say 'Do you know?' and cake flies everywhere and children scream. It's great. I love it.
Andrew Denton: Is.. that really strikes me as being very much that regardless of Jim Carrey the public figure or the job, you create that comedic response to just make it funny?
Jim Carrey: I like to express myself in every different way, but when I'm coming here today I just think part of me still gets nervous about talking and doing whatever, but the other part of me goes 'none of this going to matter'.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: In a hundred years they'll never remember, it won't matter, so just have fun, let's have a blast.
Andrew Denton: Is the scarier thought for you that you actually would. Do you reach a point where you've stopped being nervous because if your idea of fun is to be out there all the time isn't it a scary thing to actually slow down and become conservative?
Jim Carrey: Ah well it just depends on what you want to hang on to.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: I mean you can be anything you want if you're not hung on to a result. If I wanted to wake up tomorrow and decide to be the Stelic guy or whatever, which probably will never happen.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Folks. But, um, but if I did… some people choose a character to play in life you know and they go out. So ah…I might not be as popular, but it'll be interesting.
Andrew Denton: You talk about having fun with your daughter's friends, like that story about 'What Lies Beneath'. What's the biggest stage on which you've gone out there and really surprised people, where you've had the most fun?
Jim Carrey: Well I'm constantly doing it, when I show up in places it's really hard for me not to get involved in some way. Like when I I went to 'Saturday Night Live' and Fu Fighters were playing on stage and I just couldn't help myself. I had to get up and play my leg with the Fu Fighters and stuff like that. So I got up and they had no idea it was in the middle of the…like Orange Alert in New York, so… the guitarist was looking at me like he had no idea who I was. I was like showing my face so he could see me so he wouldn't whack me with the thing. Stuff like that is so much fun to me.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: I got up with Elton John.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Ah ah…the Aerohad Pond over 20,000 people or something like 15,000. I was backstage and he was kicking everybody out, he was having an audience with people and and before he kicked me out I said, "Well you know need any help singing 'Rocket Man' let me know". Like that. And he went "Oh really, you want to sing back up?" And I said "No!". And he said, "Oh a duet?" I said "Sure, why not?"
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Like that because it seized the day with me.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know what I mean? I'm there and why not, so he goes "Oh. okay get him the lyrics. I said "Gee, you have a jacket?, you know, anything I can wear out there?" So he set me up with one of his leather jackets with Elton glasses and I came out on stage at Aerohad Pond, I'm in the audience first of all because you never know all the lyrics with an Elton John song.
Andrew Denton: No.
Jim Carrey: There's always some one that he packs his bag and he survic…your whole life you're like going, survik…but you never know what it is and you don't care.
Andrew Denton: No.
Jim Carrey: Because it sounds so good, but you don't care. So I'm like sitting there looking at the lyrics of Rocket Man while he's singing Rocket Man…or he's singing Daniel.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And I have to go up next.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And I'm in this gigantic 20,000-person crowd with a little penlight looking and going, 'the salman tattoos'. Is that what he sings? Oh my God, he packed my bags.... like just.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: I'm discovering it at that moment and then he introduced me and the place went crazy.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I went "Oh my God, no wonder these rock stars are friggin' head cases". Anyway so I got out there and sang with them and and it was just a trip, it was so much fun, it was great.
Andrew Denton: Yeah. You say seize.
Jim Carrey: Was that the world's longest answer?
Andrew Denton: No.
Jim Carrey: It had to be.
Andrew Denton: That was fantastic.
Jim Carrey: Really?
Andrew Denton: No, no we've clocked one at 22 and 15 seconds.
Jim Carrey: Really? Hmm.
Andrew Denton: Then.
Jim Carrey: Who was that? Russell Crowe?
Andrew Denton: It was Russell.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha…talkative. Ah ah ah ah ah.
Andrew Denton: Do you know Russ?
Jim Carrey: No I don't.
Andrew Denton: No.
Jim Carrey: No I don't.
Andrew Denton: He wants to fight you.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha…oh that's one ask I'm going to have to take.
Andrew Denton: Yep.
Jim Carrey: Just to do it.
Andrew Denton: We could ah sign.
Jim Carrey: Do you want to arrange that?
Andrew Denton: In Australia?
Jim Carrey: Alright.
Andrew Denton: Before or.
Jim Carrey: Our alligator…one and for all.
Andrew Denton: Which one first?
Jim Carrey: Ah, let me just see how the 'gator goes.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Andrew Denton: You said seize the day and it's it's obvious that the bigger the situation the more fun it is to do something unexpected?
Jim Carrey: Oh yeah. The more uptight the situation, the more the more you need to, absolutely.
Andrew Denton: So.
Jim Carrey: It's a balance, it's a balancing act that's what it is.
Andrew Denton: You must've thought about this. If the day ever came where you met the president of the United States of America…
Jim Carrey: Right.
Andrew Denton: What would you do?
Jim Carrey: What would I do?
Andrew Denton: What would you like to do?
Jim Carrey: What would I like to do? Ah oh gosh, I've just been avoiding that so badly. Um, ha, ha, yeah it's just…What would I do? I'd probably be very diplomatic.
Andrew Denton: Hmm mm.
Jim Carrey: Actually.
Andrew Denton: But the temptation.
Jim Carrey: I'd be disappointingly diplomatic probably for my audience. They'd go "Get 'im, Jim! Do something, man! Grease tags, man!" But there's times when grease tags just don't fit.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And I recognise that.
Andrew Denton: The temptation though. Even.
Jim Carrey: Hey Mister President let's see some grease tags, okay bend over. Welcome to Cell Block D. Sorry. Freeze.
Andrew Denton: Even just to go up to him and say I'm sorry I don't remember your name surely.
Jim Carrey: No, I do have much leverage actually.
Andrew Denton: Mmm.
Jim Carrey: If that's the one thing about doing what I do it's like…I just did a show called 'Colin O'Brien' and I actually called Cambridge and got Stephen Hawking to do a comedy bit with me.
Andrew Denton: No?
Jim Carrey: Yeah. This is what I mean. I mean it's just like the hall pass of being a comedian, you know. And I called up, yeah called up Cambridge, and I just asked him if he would do a bit and I sent him the lines and he said yes, he'd like to do it and recorded a Webcam piece himself for me.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Which was me writing and faxing it to him and his assistant saying "Stephen would like to maybe change a word or two, he thinks it's great".
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But he just wants to maybe change a word or two. I said go for it, go do whatever you want. So he changed the words. The bit was I was explaining ecpeurotic universal theory on the show.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Okay and it's like I'm really into science and he calls me in the middle of it and says don't try to explain it to them, their tiny pea brains cannot possibly grasp the concept and it was amazing and he so he's on there you know basically saying "well I have to go now, I have to I'm watching 'Dumb and Dumber' and marvelling at the pure genius of it. You truly are a genius." Like that, he calls me a genius so I say "No you're a genius", and he says "No you are", "No you are", "No you are, infinity".
Andrew Denton: Ha oh.
Jim Carrey: And I actually got Stephen Hawking to do the bit and it was amazing.
Andrew Denton: You're really into science, what is ecpeur or did you just find this in a dictionary?
Jim Carrey: No, ecpeurotic theory.
Andrew Denton: Which is?
Jim Carrey: It's the brain theory of the universe. It's a different theory than the Big Bang theory.
Andrew Denton: What does it say?
Jim Carrey: Well I'm not exactly versed in this kind of thing.
Andrew Denton: Right.
Jim Carrey: It's actually scientifically…
Andrew Denton: Don't worry you can tell me anything.
Jim Carrey: That's it's basically that we're on this wavelength, part of a brain…like the tissue of a brain.
Andrew Denton: Right.
Jim Carrey: And the different universes, whatever. I can't really explain it.
Andrew Denton: Sure.
Jim Carrey: Ah it's too heady for me.
Andrew Denton: You had Stephen Hawking. As you said we've got Stephen Hawking.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Your life.
Jim Carrey: I know it's crazy.
Andrew Denton: The possibilities of your life…
Jim Carrey: Are endless. Endless in wonderful that's why I feel so blessed. I feel like I've got the hall pass. The hall pass of doom it's like I could go anywhere and hang out with people and…
Andrew Denton: Is there anyone perhaps other than the President, and you could probably ring him. Is there anyone?
Jim Carrey: See guys like that, like Hawking, that excites me.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know what I mean. I mean that's like basically that's Einstein.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: You know he's the smartest guy in the solar system whatever, you know you can go there.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: But it's just fun and I know some day I'll probably hang out and have dinner with him. I had dinner with Henry Kissinger one day and it was like the freakish thing ever.
Andrew Denton: What was it like?
Jim Carrey: I drove to the restaurant and cough and I sat out in my car for ten minutes before I went in, valets knocked, oh just give me a minute. Okay, what am I going to say to Harry Kissinger. Okay I better get a 'USA Today' or something. Ha, ha, ha…glance over the topics, the headlines, briefly. But it was so comfortable. But that's what he's good at I suppose is making people feel comfortable. But he was so not pretentious and just completely open and a complete Ace fan.
Andrew Denton: What did you talk about?
Jim Carrey: He wanted to talk about movies mostly.
Andrew Denton: Of course.
Jim Carrey: And then we talked about Nixon.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: We talked about Nixon for a long time. Talked about how he thought Nixon was just it was just kind of a sad story because Nixon just wanted to be liked, but he couldn't get out of his own way.
Andrew Denton: Right.
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Did he give you any insights into the Nixon White House that surprised you?
Jim Carrey: He told me that Dick…ha, ha, ha…likes the ladies. No.
Andrew Denton: No really?
Jim Carrey: No I don't know.
Andrew Denton: Not a string of women haven't come out and said.
Jim Carrey: He didn't tell me anything extraordinary. He told me one thing that's kind of extraordinary, but I don't think I can say it on the air, so. He told me one thing that I can't divulge to you.
Andrew Denton: Could you perhaps do a mime of it?
Jim Carrey: No. Ah no that has nothing to do with it. It's more military, military secret. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Andrew Denton: Wow. You've got a military secret. I'm really scared now.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, ha, ha, yeah Henry just gave me a few military secrets.
Andrew Denton: Yeah that's right, but don't tell anyone.
Jim Carrey: No, really, off camera.
Andrew Denton: Mmm. I understand. And you can trust me with it.
Jim Carrey: No problem.
Andrew Denton: You.
Jim Carrey: I saw him this close to Jan.
Andrew Denton: Ha, ha, ha.
Jim Carrey: I saw him this close to Jan. I've gotta tell you if I found all those I just want to have a party one time when I find in the like the tabloids I just want to invite the sources that are close to me.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Because that would be a huge party of people I don't know.
Andrew Denton: There's talk that you might be making a film with Nicole Kidman called 'Dog Days', does that prospect excite you?
Jim Carrey: It's an idea that's out there. I think we're talking about a couple of different things. But she's great, she's an amazing person. Yeah. So I'd love to work with her, it'd be great, yeah.
Andrew Denton: You're a powerful man, you're a powerful man.
Jim Carrey: Ha, ha, geez.
Andrew Denton: No, no, no you're…I mean you're within your industry you're very powerful?
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: You've got a very powerful…
Jim Carrey: Yeah. Oh like I could chop some I could chop some heads. Sure.
Andrew Denton: Well you gross a 100 million, or your films do every time they go up pretty much which is power in this industry. Is it easy though when you're you're wielding a lot of power to to hurt people around you without realising you're doing that?
Jim Carrey: No, I have such a great gang around me. My team is incredibly intuitive and very real and very centred and I have a lot of different voices, a lot of different…um, you know…like, I have my own team of analysts that go like "you're a little to the left", you know, or whatever.
Andrew Denton: So there's someone in your life who can say to you, Jim that sucks?
Jim Carrey: Yeah. Sure, sure. Mostly I do it, but definitely I have people…I have great barometers around me and and just really good people. Yeah.
Andrew Denton: Jim I hope you do come to Australia, when you do I'm happy to put you up in my place.
Jim Carrey: Yeah?
Andrew Denton: I can arrange the crocodiles.
Jim Carrey: Crocodiles. Good.
Andrew Denton: I can arrange Russell.
Jim Carrey: Yeah. Now is that something everybody does when they get off the plane?
Andrew Denton: Fight Russell?
Jim Carrey: No, ha, ha, ha. The crocodiles? Go right for that?
Andrew Denton: No, no.
Jim Carrey: Is Steve Irwin able to like walk the streets? Do people like throw cats on him when he has no shirt on?
Andrew Denton: I th…
Jim Carrey: I think he should do like 'Jackass'. Jump into the whole 'Jackass' thing, but you know.
Andrew Denton: Steve Irwin's 'Jackass'?
Jim Carrey: Yeah.
Andrew Denton: It can all be arranged.
Jim Carrey: No he's amazing actually.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: He's amazing. I would like to meet him.
Andrew Denton: That can be arranged, too.
Jim Carrey: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Denton: You've got no excuses.
Jim Carrey: Then I'd like to take that power of God and change him QLMNO and then an arm and a leg.
Andrew Denton: I do. Going back to the next thing. It's really been a pleasure. Thank you very much. Thanks for being on Australian television.
Jim Carrey: Oh I'm so happy. I'm so happy to be here two dimensionally, can't wait to spike it up a bit.
Andrew Denton: As the ambassador for my people, my nation salutes you.
Jim Carrey: Cool, man.
Andrew Denton: Jim Carrey, thank you.
Jim Carrey: Thanks, so much.
Andrew Denton: Thanks a lot.
Jim Carrey: Alright.
Andrew Denton: You got the Nixon handshake?
Jim Carrey: Oh oh yeah…exactly, I'm scoring points here.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: Right now.
Andrew Denton: You can tell me about the Kissinger thing now.
Jim Carrey: Okay. Right. Yeah. Well what it is, is he has a mall.
Andrew Denton: Yeah.
Jim Carrey: And it's shaped like Margaret Thatcher you know.
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