Over the course of his career,
Jim Carrey has become known for playing slightly out-of-the-box characters. However, in recent years, it seems as if the actor's bizarre behavior has begun to leak into the real world, too.
Back in September, the 56-year-old caught some flack after making
strange statements during New York Fashion Week. When asked by an interviewer at the event about whether he believes icons such as himself have the ability to change the world, he replied, "I don't believe in icons," before launching into a strange existential monologue about personalities:
"I don't believe in personalities. I believe that peace lies beyond personalities, beyond invention and disguise, beyond the red 'S' you wear on your chest that makes bullets bounce off. I believe that it's deeper than that, I believe we're a field of energy dancing for itself, and err... I don't care."
And now it seems he's gone one step further by claiming that he, himself, does not actually exist.
In an interview with The Talks, the 56-year-old actor riffed on what it was like to really live as another person. He referenced his 1999 role in Man on the Moon, in which he did not break character during the entire production process.
"I realized that I could lose myself in a character. I could live in a character. It was a choice," he explained.
But then he went on to say that, after being someone else for so long, it took a while to re-adjust to the person he considered to be himself.
"I took a month to remember who I was. 'What do I believe? What are my politics? What do I like and dislike?' It took me a while and I was depressed going back into my concerns and my politics," he said. "But there was a shift that had already happened. And the shift was, 'Wait a second. If I can put Jim Carrey aside for four months, who is Jim Carrey? Who the hell is that?'"
And this is where it got
sort of weird.
"I know now he [meaning himself] does not really exist. He’s ideas," Carrey said.
The actor is then prompted to explain exactly what he means by that statement. He elaborates:
"If you want to talk scientifically, break it down to a cluster of tetrahedrons that somehow believe they are a thing. But they’re ideas — just ideas.
"Jim Carrey was an idea my parents gave me. Irish-Scottish-French was an idea I was given. Canadian was an idea that I was given. I had a hockey team and a religion and all of these things that cobble together into this kind of Frankenstein monster, this representation.
"It’s like an avatar. These are all the things I am. You are not an actor,
or a lawyer. No one is a lawyer. There are lawyers, law is practiced, but no one is a lawyer. There is no one, in fact, there."
In a final statement on the discussion,
Carrey said, "I think you pretty much play your part as best as you can — but no, I don’t believe this is real."
Whether this is just part of some ongoing crisis of Carrey's, or a new outlook he has decided to adopt, or simply his way of messing with semantics in a manner that makes him seem more like the artist he now wants to portray himself as, it's still kinda wild.
But, hey, seeing as Jim Carrey isn't real, he can't exactly be insulted by that.
