Top 5 negative roles Jim Carrey tried to persuade you to hate: why he failed

Jim Carrey is one of the most famous actors in Hollywood, although if you take a look at his films, you will notice that in very few he has played serious roles and, as experts in the field say, “notable” and good to consider for some prestigious awards.

Even so, owning one is still beyond the reach of the average person.

And to prove you right, I challenge you to ask, no, not 100 Romanians, but at least 5, if they have any idea who, for example, Olivia Coleman, nominated for this year’s Oscars, for her role in “The Lost Daughter.” With any luck, if you come across real moviegoers, you will get some favorable answers (or not). Do the same with Jim Carrey’s name – you’ll find that, whether you’re a fan or not, few will tell you they haven’t heard of him.

So what makes Jim Carrey special? Definitely the uniqueness. Somehow, intentionally or accidentally, the actor managed to create a special character that he “abused” in almost every role he played, with small exceptions in the list below. So it is enough to hear. “smokin ‘!”, That the figure of Carrey will immediately come to mind, wearing the famous green mask on his face.

And then, I noticed another phenomenon: despite the multitude of negative roles he played, it is impossible for me to think of him as an actor who practices such interpretations. The answer is, again, quite simple. Despite the fact that the role is predominantly negative, Carrey has his own style of turning a character who should be hated by the public into one that you will love to hate.

Negative roles, played by Jim Carrey, in which you can’t hate him and peace

Chip, in “The Cable Guy”

What “The Cable Guy” did for cable guys around the world is the same thing that “Single White Woman” managed to do for his roommates: he made you more attentive to people and , in some places even more paranoid.

In this film, Jim Carrey plays the role of Ernie “Chip” Douglas – or at least that’s what he claims his name is (we finally find out that the name is a pseudonym). Chip is a guy with mental problems who befriends his clients by offering them free premium channels.

When Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick) accepts Chip’s offer, he also discovers that he has suddenly become one of the cable boy’s “favorite customers.” Moreover, it seems that the benefits come at a pretty high price for Steven.

In 1996, the year “The Cable Guy” was released, movie buffs were quite amazed to learn about the role played by Jim Carrey, since they were used to “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” or even “Dumb and Dumber ”. For this reason, no one was able to take Jim seriously when he was cast in “The Cable Guy,” which turned the character Chip from a fundamentally evil one into a brand joke. Jim Carrey.

Jim Carrey as Walter Sparrow in The Number 23

Undoubtedly, “The Number 23” is one of Carrey’s least known films, earning a rather bleak 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Here, he plays Walter Sparrow, an animal control officer who becomes obsessed with a book called “Number 23,” written by author Topsy Kretts. As he delves deeper into the action in the book, he notices similarities between himself and the main character.

I admit, at the time, it was great to see Jim Carrey approach the dark territory of the thriller, although I didn’t manage to hate him a bit this time either.

Grinch, in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”

You might think that “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is a gentle, really nice movie that ends nicely to please everyone – and you wouldn’t be too wrong. But you must never forget that The Grinch is, by definition, a negative character, beyond its radical transformation, in the end. So, this mixture of “wickedness” and “sweetness” seems to fit Jim Carrey perfectly, especially in this case. Seriously, would you see this character played by anyone else?

Despite what I mentioned at the beginning of the article, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” was a resounding success at the box office, even if both the critics and the public did not seem to agree with the idea – not at first. Fortunately, the film broke everyone’s prejudices, and this is due, without a doubt, to Jim Carrey, the nice “villain”.

Stanley Ipkiss in The Mask

In this action-based comedy of the same name, Carrey plays Stanley Ipkiss, a shy official who finds a mysterious mask depicting the Norwegian god Loki. When he puts it on his face, he turns into his alter ego, known as The Mask.

The character is, without a doubt, an agent of chaos, revealing the worst of the shy official Ipkiss. He is that wicked inner voice that makes him rob banks, all to satisfy his personal needs and vengeance. However, there are some advantages of the new condition: the power to destroy the real “mess” of the city, but also the fact that Ipkiss eventually gains enough self-confidence to give up the mask.

Despite its box office success, “The Mask” never generated a franchise starring Carrey. Surely, if the film had been made nowadays, the situation would have been different.

Count Olaf in “A Series of Unfortunate Events”

The infamous Count Olaf from “A Series of Unfortunate Events” (2004) is perhaps one of the greatest villains to ever “fall into Jim Carrey’s hands.” Olaf is a mischievous, almost evil old man who is willing to do anything to get what he wants – even to kill children. In the film, he is the only living relative of the children of the Baudelaire family and becomes their legal guardian after their parents die in a mysterious fire.

Shortly after the children come into his custody, he puts them to work, treating them like servants, and hatches a scheme to trick his own niece into marrying him during a play. The clever children of the Bauledaire family quickly realize that everything is just a ploy by Olaf, and they do their best to stop the sinister old man from implementing his plan.

As usual, Jim Carrey manages, with each scene, to create an absolutely perfect character that generates mixed feelings.

It should be noted that the movie “A Series of Unfortunate Events” was taken over, years later, by Netflix, the giant turning it into a limited mini-series which, unfortunately, was not as successful as Jim’s version. Carrey.