Carrey was born in Newmarket on January 17, 1962, Ontario, Canada and began performing in Toronto comedy clubs at age 15. He moved to Los Angeles in 1981 and soon became a regular performer at the famed Comedy Store. Carrey began his professional career as a stand-up comedian and found success on television before breaking into motion pictures. His big break came after Rodney Dangerfield signed him on for a season and an appearance on David Letterman’s Late Night show. Shortly afterwards, NBC offered him a role in the series The Duck Factory. A short lived series that was cancelled after thirteen episodes. Realizing that he did not want to spend the rest of his life as a standup comic, Carrey decided to take his acting to a more professional level.
His first major film role was Earth Girls Are Easy. Carrey later moved on to In Living Color, playing one of the show’s two white cast members where he gained national exposure that tossed him to the role of Ace Ventura. In 1995, Carrey starred in the box office smash Batman Forever as the Riddler. Other movies he starred in include Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Dumb and Dumber, The Cable Guy, The Truman Show, and Liar Liar – for which he received a Golden Globe Best Actor nomination. The actor’s unique combination of improvisation, mimicry and innovation with an outrageous style of physical comedy has captured the attention of film audiences throughout the world.
He has created some of the most popular and entertaining characters in modern film history, and his films Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, based on the Dark Horse comic book series of the same name, Dumb and Dumber and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls have all conquered the global box office, with all four films exceeding the $100 million mark in domestic grosses alone. With the 1996 release of The Cable Guy, Carrey’s worldwide box office exceeded the $l billion mark.