Inside the Actor’s Studio: Jim Carrey

Jim Carrey: I did a lot of things with my face… I did a lot of things physically. Its hugely important to understand the emotional life of the character and what you want and what’s actually happening and what your character is after but, you know, you also, I believe, you know, when you get above and beyond the words and everything else… there’s another space. And its that physical space and a tiny physical thing can change people’s minds about you completely.

Before I did ‘Man on the Moon’ I, I was uh, hanging around Nick Cage and it was about a month before and he said, “What’s going on with you? What’s wrong with you?” And I said, “What are you talking about?” And he said, “Your eyes are different. You look different. You’re not the same. What the hells going on with you?” Like that, because I was already going into that place of, uh, where I believe Andy (Kaufman) came from. And, um, that was his yearning (makes a facial expression) to stay connected to wonder.

But the physical thing I did, um, was just shave a tiny, just a little tiny bit off the points of my eyebrows. I just cut the points… driving me crazy ever since. Now they grow like that long (indicates length). They’re like, “REMEMBER ANDY? REMEMBER THAT CHOICE?” You know, that kind of thing, I gotta cut ‘em all the time. But, uh, but that made such a difference in my face

Inside the Actor’s Studio / Season 17 / Jim Carrey