History Creator / JimCarrey

* ''[[Series/30Rock Leap Dave Williams]]'' (2012): Overworked businessman Dave Williams finds himself transforming into the mythical Leap Day William, a [[HumanoidAbomination a fish person who lives at the bottom of the Marianas Trench]] that emerges every leap day to give candy to crying children.

He has played many classic characters, and his involvement in a movie will often be a success -- so successful, the subsequent films and series usually go down from his absence, as he rarely makes sequels to his own films. He developed a distaste for playing the same characters again and again on ''Series/InLivingColor''; the only reason he did the ''Ace Ventura'' sequel was due to contract reasons, and so thoroughly detested working on it that he openly declared he would never do a sequel again. In 1995, he even turned down a $10 million paycheck--which would have set a record, at the time, for the highest sum ever offered to a single actor--to reprise his role as Stanley Ipkiss in ''The Mask 2''. He held to this until 2014's ''Dumb and Dumber To'', re-teaming with Creator/JeffDaniels and the Farrelly brothers. (He ''was'' interested in reprising the role of Count Olaf for a sequel to ''Film/{{A Series of Unfortunate Events|2004}}'', but the film did not do well enough at the box-office to warrant such.) He broke his rule again in 2022 by reprising his role of Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik for ''Film/SonicTheHedgehog2''.

* ''Series/InLivingColor'' (1990–1994): Vera the Mannish Bodybuilder, Fire Marshall Bill, various

* ''Film/TheTrumanShow'' (1998): Truman Burbank (Won the Golden Globe for Best Actor [-- Drama)

* ''Film/TheMajestic'' (2001): Peter Appleton (Notable in that it was his first truly against-type role, though Truman and Kaufman hinted towards it.)

* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': UsefulNotes/JoeBiden (A recurring guest role in the first half of Season 46, during the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign that pitted Biden against Creator/DonaldTrump)

** A noticeable number of his characters are associated with the color green: the Mask, the Riddler, the Grinch, Colonel Stars-and-Stripes, and Jeff Piccirillo/Mr. Pickles. Even Doctor Robotnik gets a green costume.
** '''Television!''' Skip Tarkenton is an animator on a children's cartoon show. Wiploc and his cohorts LearntEnglishFromWatchingTelevision. Stanley Ipkiss' nature and abilities as The Mask stem from his love of vintage Looney Tunes/Tex Avery shorts. Edward Nygma's journey to supervillainy involves a device that creates 3D television images but ''also'' allows him to intercept the brainwaves of viewers. Chip Douglas was effectively raised by TV thanks to a neglectful mother, with frightening results. Truman Burbank is unknowingly raised ''on'' television. Andy Kaufman becomes a national star on television and leverages fame into increasingly wild performance art that plays with the medium. Bruce Nolan is a local television reporter. Steve Gray is a StageMagician/extreme stunt performer with his own cable TV show. Jeff Piccirillo is a children's show host who struggles to cope with the unhappy real world.
** Quite a few of his characters have or end up with alter egos of some kind -- a secret identity, a role they play, etc. Even Peter in ''Film/TheMajestic'' gets amnesia, is mistaken for another person, and begins to live as them. In several of these cases, particularly ''Kidding'', their character development involves them accepting and revealing who they are BeneathTheMask.

* AnimatedAdaptation: His first [[Film/AceVenturaPetDetective three]] [[Film/TheMask hit]] [[Film/DumbAndDumber movies]] were all turned into Saturday morning cartoons in the mid-90s. Note that all of those movies were rated PG-13, resulting in more family-friendly jokes while retaining all of the wacky characteristics.

** ''Me, Myself and Irene''
** ''Fun with Dick and Jane''
* BusCrash: The reason he never appeared in sequels to the films he starred in, though he did star in the second ''Ace Ventura'' film as well as the third ''Dumb and Dumber'' film.
* CareerResurrection: Carrey had a rough time of it in TheNewTens. His relationship with anti-autism pseudoscience promoter Jenny [=McCarthy=] was problematic to say the least, and then there was 2014's ''Film/DumbAndDumberTo'', the sequel to ''Film/DumbAndDumber''. Due to various legal issues surrounding that film against the crew responsible for making it, it was the end of Carrey's reign as a box office heavyweight (and he was the biggest for a time). For a few years he was mainly in smaller art-house releases and direct-to-video fare, and doing controversial paintings critical of various right-wing political figures, including then-President UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump. He also suffered from depression, exacerbated by the suicide of an ex-girlfriend. Slowly but surely he recovered though: ''Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond'', a documentary about his experiences on ''Film/ManOnTheMoon'', was acclaimed, he had a minor success with ''Series/{{Kidding}}'', and finally playing Dr. Robotnik in ''Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020'' gave him his first big movie -- and a hit at that -- in years. From there he not only had another hit with [[Film/SonicTheHedgehog2 the sequel]] but had a success as a novelist with ''Memoirs and Misinformation'', went viral with his limited-time stint on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' as Joe Biden, and appeared to great acclaim on Music/TheWeeknd's ''Dawn FM'' of all things.

* FaceFault: He pulled it off ''in live action'' in the film ''Liar Liar''. After a long sequence of hiding from high-end executive types, he runs into the last person he wants to see, shouts ''"God in Heaven!"'' and collapses to the ground. He is probably the only person who will ever be able to pull off a FaceFault without it looking totally forced/awkward/just kind of stupid.

** Apparently, there's about 2 hours worth of footage of him from ''Fun with Dick and Jane'' torturing Jeff Garlin with a voice modifier. Though no footage has been released in full.
* TheHyena: Jim Carrey's characters all tend to have a smarmy, nasal laugh. He added a variation in ''Film/MeMyselfAndIrene'' by making Hank give a chuckle so raspy it sounded like a dog panting.
* LargeHam: He has a subheading under Film at the trope entry for a reason (and it was originally the first one, at that). Think Creator/JackLemmon turned UpToEleven.

** A noticeable number of his characters are associated with the color green: the Mask, the Riddler, the Grinch, and Colonel Stars-and-Stripes. Even Doctor Robotnik gets a green costume.
** '''Television!''' Wiploc and his cohorts LearntEnglishFromWatchingTelevision. Stanley Ipkiss' nature and abilities as The Mask stem from his love of vintage Looney Tunes/Tex Avery shorts. Edward Nygma's journey to supervillainy involves a device that creates 3D television images but ''also'' allows him to intercept the brainwaves of viewers. Chip Douglas was effectively raised by TV thanks to a neglectful mother, with frightening results. Truman Burbank is unknowingly raised ''on'' television. Andy Kaufman becomes a national star on television and leverages fame into increasingly wild performance art that plays with the medium. Bruce Nolan is a local television reporter. Steve Gray is a StageMagician/extreme stunt performer with his own cable TV show. Jeff Piccirillo is a children's show host who struggles to cope with the unhappy real world.

** '''Television!''' Wiploc and his cohorts LearntEnglishFromWatchingTelevision. Stanley Ipkiss' nature and abilities as The Mask stem from his love of vintage Looney Tunes/Tex Avery shorts. Edward Nygma's journey to supervillainy involves a device that creates 3D television images but ''also'' allows him to intercept the brainwaves of viewers. Chip Douglas was effectively raised by TV thanks to a neglectful mother, with frightening results. Truman Burbank is unknowingly raised ''on'' television. Andy Kaufman becomes a national star on television and leverages fame into increasingly wild performance art that plays with the medium. Bruce Nolan is a local television reporter. Steve Gray is a StageMagician/extreme stunt performer with his own cable TV show. Jeff Piccirillo is a children's show host.
** Quite a few of his characters have or end up with alter egos of some kind -- a secret identity, a role they play, etc. Even Peter in ''Film/TheMajestic'' gets amnesia, is mistaken for another person, and begins to live as them.
* SadClown: He plays a secretly gloomy children's TV host in ''Kidding''.

* SmiteMeOMightySmiter: He said it in [[Film/BruceAlmighty the movie]] that is the TropeNamer. [[Film/TheTrumanShow And again before that.]]

He's often dubbed by Creator/MarioCastaneda and Creator/GerardoReyero for Latin American Spanish releases of his films. In Japanese dubs, he's often voiced by Creator/KoichiYamadera.

He has played many classic characters, and his involvement in a movie will often be a success -- so successful, the subsequent films and series usually go down from his absence, as he rarely makes sequels to his own films. He developed a distaste for playing the same characters again and again on ''Series/InLivingColor''; the only reason he did the ''Ace Ventura'' sequel was due to contract reasons, and so thoroughly detested working on it that he openly declared he would never do a sequel again. In 1995, he even turned down a $10 million paycheck--which would have set a record, at the time, for the highest sum ever offered to a single actor--to reprise his role as Stanley Ipkiss in ''The Mask 2''. He held to this until 2014's ''Dumb and Dumber To'', re-teaming with Creator/JeffDaniels and the Farrelly brothers. (He ''was'' interested in reprising the role of Count Olaf for a sequel to ''Film/{{A Series of Unfortunate Events|2004}}'', but the film did not do well enough at the box-office to warrant such.) He broke his rule again in 2022 by reprising his role of Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik for ''Sonic the Hedgehog 2''.

* CatchPhrase: Many, especially as he became an A-list star. ''WesternAnimation/CloseEnough'' did an entire episode around Jim's most quotable films.

** ''Man on the Moon'' takes an askew glance at the trope. Latka, Andy Kaufman's ''Taxi'' character (adapted from his stage act), has "Tank you veddy much" as his catchphrase. The montage of his work on the show ends with a FullyAutomaticClipShow of him saying the catchphrase, implying that -- at least to Andy -- he isn't making progress as an artist despite his popularity and his character isn't much more than the catchphrase.

*** During the Cold Open after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 Presidential election, Carrey appeared as Biden, attempting to be a gracious winner, but finally relenting by saying: "In every election, there has to be a winner, and... a LA-HOO-SUH-HERRRRRRR!" to raucous applause (and causing Creator/MayaRudolph to visibly [[{{Corpsing}} corpse]]).

* [[SheCleansUpNicely He Cleans Up Nicely]]: Due to his smarmy, rubber-face persona, it is easy to forget that he is a tall, dashing man. It is more-evident in his more serious roles.

* ''Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond'' (2017): Retrospective documentary of the intense MethodActing he did for ''Film/ManOnTheMoon''
* ''Memoirs and Misinformation'' (2020): An autofictional (re: heavily fictionalized memoir) SurrealHumor novel written with Dana Vachon.

* ''Memoirs and Misinformation'' (2020): An autofictional novel (re: heavily fictionalized memoir) written with Dana Vachon.

* ''Dawn FM'' (2022): For this ConceptAlbum by Music/TheWeeknd he plays [[TheFerryman the DJ]] who appears on three numbers: the title track (which leads directly into the song "Sacrifice" and is included in the latter's video), "Out of Time", and the closing track "Phantom Regret by Jim" (which features him reciting an original poem). He also appears onscreen in the music video for "Out of Time".

* CareerResurrection: Carrey had a rough time of it in TheNewTens starting with his relationship with anti-autism pseudoscience promoter Jenny [=McCarthy=], and then there was 2014's ''Film/DumbAndDumberTo'', the sequel to ''Film/DumbAndDumber''. Due to various legal issues surrounding that film against the crew responsible for making it, it was the end of Carrey's reign as a box office heavyweight (and he was the biggest for a time). After 2015, he was mainly in smaller art-house releases and direct-to-video fare, and doing controversial paintings critical of various right-wing political figures, including then-President UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump. He also suffered from depression, exacerbated by the suicide of his ex-girlfriend and lingering mental issues caused by the extreme MethodActing he underwent on the set of ''Film/ManOnTheMoon'', issues that still have yet to be fully resolved. In 2017 however, he ended up getting the role of Dr. Robotnik in ''Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020''. Not only was the film the second live-action video game adaptation to see critical and box-office success after ''Film/DetectivePikachu'', it was also Carrey's first big-budget movie in 6 years.

* LostInCharacter: An infamous case with ''Film/ManOnTheMoon''. To portray the film's subject, Creator/AndyKaufman, Carrey utilized MethodActing, staying in-character as Kaufman both on and off set, even in public and during promotional events. However, the Kaufman persona ended up overtaking Carrey's entire self, to the point where not only does he [[IdentityAmnesia not remember a single thing he did during this period]], but he also attributes his actions when in-character to Kaufman to this very day. When production wrapped up and Carrey could finally drop the Kaufman persona, he was so mentally exhausted that he felt like an EmptyShell of his former self and understandably declined to appear as Kaufman in the music video for Music/{{REM}}'s "The Great Beyond". It's possible some of his more controversial antics post-''Man on the Moon'' stem in part from the sheer degree to which the Kaufman persona destroyed his old state of mind.

* ''Dawn FM'' (2022): For this ConceptAlbum by Music/TheWeeknd he plays [[TheFerryman the DJ]] who appears on three numbers: the title track, "Out of Time", and closing track "Phantom Regret by Jim" (which features him reciting an original poem). He also appears in the music video for "Out of Time".

** A noticeable number of his characters are associated with the color green, such as the Mask, the Riddler, the Grinch, and Colonel Stars-and-Stripes. Even Doctor Robotnik gets a green costume.

** Many of his characters have alter egos, affect disguises, and/or end up with some other kind of alternate identity as in the case of Peter in ''Film/TheMajestic'', who after getting amnesia is mistaken for another person and begins to live as them.

* TheTrickster: Starting with Ace Ventura, quite a few of his characters qualify, especially as subtropes. Some are actually empowered into this as part of the story.

* TheTrickster: Starting with Ace Ventura, quite a few of his characters qualify, especially as subtropes. Some are actually empowered into this as part of the story; in these cases, the good ones tend to start as TheEveryman or a NiceGuy in need of more confidence/power while the bad ones often suffer from neglect or rejection and use their powers for malicious mischief.
** The Mask: TricksterGod (via powers granted by the trapped spirit of Loki himself)
** The Riddler: DelightingInRiddles, MasterOfIllusion (via the Box 2.0 device)

** Andy Kaufman: TheGadfly, TrollingCreator

** Bruce Nolan: TricksterGod (at least initially once he's empowered)

* TheTrickster: Starting with Ace Ventura, quite a few of his characters qualify, especially as subtropes:
** The Mask: TricksterGod (with powers granted by the trapped spirit of Loki himself)

* ''Dawn FM'' (2022): For this ConceptAlbum by Music/TheWeeknd he plays the DJ who appears on three numbers: the title track, "Out of Time", and closing track "Phantom Regret by Jim" (which features him reciting an original poem). He also appears in the music video for "Out of Time".

* PeopleInRubberSuits: Although many of his more eccentric/fantastical roles (Wiploc, The Mask, The Riddler, Tony Clifton, Count Olaf) required heavy makeup/costuming, playing The Grinch took this to the next level. The sheer envelopment and pain of the full-body suit made him near-impossible to work with for the first few weeks of filming. Director Ron Howard and company stood firm and managed to help him endure the process; amazingly his performance in the finished product gives no hint to how grueling the experience was for him (and it was his biggest hit up to that point).

** In his first ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' appearance (1996), the ''Creator/JoePesci Show'' skit he appeared in had him playing Creator/JimmyStewart... while [[Series/TheKidsInTheHall Mark McKinney]] played Jim Carrey. "Stewart" is appalled by "Carrey" ("[[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs Smoke a lot of dope]], do you son?") and mocks him as a diva who "needs attention twenty-four hours a day!"

* ''Memoirs and Misinformation'' (2020): An {{Autofiction}} novel written with Dana Vachon.
* ''Dawn FM'' (2022): For this ConceptAlbum by Music/TheWeeknd he plays the DJ; the closing track "Phantom Regret by Jim" features him reciting an original poem. He also appears in the music video for "Out of Time".

* ''The Duck Factory'' (1984): Skip Tarkenton (first regular TV role)
* ''Film/OnceBitten'' (1985): Mark Kendall (first lead role in a film)

* ''Film/AceVentura'' series (1994, 1995): Ace Ventura (first and second films of franchise -- a rarity; apparently he was so unhappy with the experience of playing the same character twice he decided to never again star in a sequel film until ''Dumb and Dumber To'')

* ''Film/TheTrumanShow'' (1998): Truman Burbank (won the Golden Globe for Best Actor Drama)
* ''Film/ManOnTheMoon'' (1999): Creator/AndyKaufman[=/=][[AlterEgoActing Tony Clifton]] (won the Golden Globe for Best Actor- Comedy)

* ''Dawn FM'' (2022): For this ConceptAlbum by Music/TheWeeknd he plays the DJ; the closing track "Phantom Regret by Jim" features him reciting an original poem.

* LargeHam: He has a subheading under Film at the trope entry for a reason (and the first one, at that). Think Creator/JackLemmon turned UpToEleven.

* TheTrickster:
** Characters of his who qualify as tricksters include Ace Ventura, the Mask (whose powers are granted by the trapped spirit of Loki himself), the Riddler, Chip Douglas, Andy Kaufman (a ''real life'' example of TheGadfly), the Grinch, Bruce Nolan once he gets divine powers, Count Olaf, and Steve Gray.
** {{Word of God}} has said that [[Manga/OnePiece Franky]] is ''based on him'' (specifically, his Ace Ventura portrayal)! On a similar note, a lot of [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender Sokka's]] facial expressions are based off Jim's.