Jim Carrey: Psychic Predicted My Amazing Breakthrough Year (Exclusive)

Canadian comic Jim Carrey says a psychic predicted his breakthrough year in 1994 before he’d even signed on to make ‘Ace Ventura’, ‘Dumb and Dumber’ and ‘The Mask’.

"I was driving down Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles [in 1993] and I saw one of those crazy ‘psychic reading’ signs and I thought: ‘That sounds like fun.’" Carrey says in our interview below.

"So, I went in and had a reading done, and this psychic reader said: ‘You’re about to do three projects that will change your life forever and will make it very difficult for anyone to ever bring you down from the place you’re going to be, which is a really good place’."

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And boy, were they right.

Carrey went from being a respected comic performer best-known for sketch show ‘In Living Color’ to one of the best paid movie stars on the planet after his triple-whammy of performances in ‘Ace’, ‘Dumb’ and ‘Mask’ which all came out in 1994.

Peter Farrelly, one half the writing-directing duo behind ‘Dumb and Dumber’, says he was unaware of the actor before he cast him in their hit comedy, and he landed the role by chance.

"When we got [Jim Carrey for ‘Dumb and Dumber’], I’d never heard of him actually," says Peter, "He had shot ‘Ace Ventura’ and ‘The Mask’, but they weren’t out yet."

"I wanted anybody, because everybody was passing [on ‘Dumb and Dumber’]. Then ‘Ace Ventura’ came out and we had a movie star on our hands."

One side effect of Carrey’s burgeoning popularity was the leverage it gave him when it came to bargaining with Hollywood studios.

His agents managed to re-up his ‘Dumb and Dumber’ deal from $350k to $7m off the back of the box office success of ‘Ace Ventura’, but he says it wasn’t greed that lead to that deal being made.

"How much you get paid is a symptom. You have no control over that, especially when you start. You’re just going for the fences with everything. A bunch of people do it for you, I had very little to do with it."

The fortune teller was right about the actor’s rise to the top though.

Following his breakthrough in 1994, which won him countless fans across the globe, Carrey went on to star in a string of comedy hits including ‘Batman Forever’, ‘Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls’, and ‘Liar Liar’.

He then went on to achieve critical acclaim in ‘The Truman Show’ (winning the best actor Golden Globe in 1998) and then later in 2004’s ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ which landed the star his first BAFTA award.

Recently, Carrey has stepped back from the limelight to concentrate on his art, but now he’s back where it all began for him starring in ‘Dumb and Dumber To’, the sequel to his 1994 hit, which recently reached the number one spot at the US box office.

He says his sabbatical from the movie industry has helped him to appreciate this second flush of success even more.

"It’s different this time around. The first time it happens to you, you’re a like a kid who wanted to go to the moon, but then you don’t realise there’s no air up there and no gravity, and you’re a little freaked out.

"The second time, you know what it’s about and you really can just enjoy the great parts of it."

'Dumb and Dumber To' is coming to UK cinemas on 19 December, 2014. Watch a trailer below.

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Image credits: Universal/New Line/Warner Bros.