It’s no mystery at this point in time that Jim Carrey is a man with range. Sure, his origins are in comedy, but he’s proven time and time again that he can pivot from slapstick to serious without skipping a beat. While Carrey is most well known for being the resident funnyman from his In Living Color days, he’s not a one trick pony. Having comedy chops is one thing (and he does in spades), but the Dumb & Dumber star has shown us a more serious side with films such as Man on the Moon, The Truman Show, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He’s even dabbled in horror with films such as The Number 23.

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While we can’t tell the man behind Ace Ventura: Pet Detective how to carry his career, we can at the very least give him an affirmative nod, and make a compelling case that we’d all love to see him in more dramatic roles. Because after so many years of laughter from his comedies, we can see the deep inner workings of a serious actor who is no stranger to changing things up and leaving us in awe with his delivery.

Drama and Horror Are Just Comedy with the Punchline Removed

     New Line Cinema

Comedy works because there is tension and release– the former being the setup, and the latter the punchline. When you remove the punchline, you’re just left with dramatic tension. Sketch Comedian turned Horror auteur Jordan Peele once said, “If it’s comedy, you take an absurd comedic notion, and you apply it to reality. If it’s horror, if it’s a thriller, you do the same thing.” Looking at Carrey’s long and decorated career, it’s clear that he knows this sentiment well.

Even in films like The Mask, where he portrays a man possessed by a mask that turns him into a chaotic evil prankster, it’s the comedic release that makes the tension work. Think about all of the terror that is hiding under a veneer of violence and chaos. The delivery is right there in front of us; but the vessel in which he delivers dictates the content shows his range. If The Mask was written in the fashion like some of the darker comic book adaptations of today, Carrey would still be the guy for the role because he understands this concept.

Capable of Playing the “Straight Man”

Dumb and Dumber comes to mind when it involves comedy coming from the form of “the straight man.” At the end of the day, Lloyd Christmas is a sincere and heartfelt man. He catches feelings for Mary Swanson, and takes Harry along with him on a wild ride to Aspen to return her lost luggage. Little does he know that epically messed up a bag drop that was meant to deliver ransom money for her captive husband, and this sets the course of events for the entire movie.

Between dosing Harry’s drink with Turbo Lax, and selling a dead bird to a blind kid, Lloyd still takes the air out of the room with lines like, “I’m sick and tired of having to eek my way through life. I’m sick and tired of being a nobody. Most of all, I’m sick and tired of having nobody.” In the midst of all the comedic chaos, moments like this make the audience truly feel sorry for Lloyd because the line is delivered with the kind of emotion a dramatic actor could deliver.

A Penchant for Method Acting

     Universal Pictures

Carrey has said himself that he lost himself in the role of portraying Andy Kauffman in Man on the Moon. From the time he woke up until it was time to retire for the night, Jim Carrey admitted that he tried to walk, talk, act, speak, and be like Kauffman to the point where it caused tension on the set. When he rarely did break character, he’d snap back into the career-defining role, and think “what would Andy do?” This kind of commitment could have severe psychological effects on a person, and a 2017 Netflix documentary does a deep dive on the production of Man on the Moon. If you want to take a deeper dive, then we strongly recommend checking out Jim & Andy on Netflix.

He Always Treads the Line Between Comedy and Drama

     Sony Pictures Releasing

While The Cable Guy received mixed reviews upon its theatrical release, it has garnered a cult status over the years, and rightfully so. The reason for this is that The Cable Guy was not a comedy. It was something deeper and darker than what we were expecting at the time, and it took time for audiences to realize what was truly happening. Chip Douglas (Carrey) torments the protagonist Steven (Matthew Broderick) by stalking him, hiring sex workers, and of course giving him free cable. But as the film unravels, we learn that Chip is a troubled man who was severely neglected by his mother as a child. He was raised by his television set, and only knew how to communicate through the tropes he grew up watching through the screen of his television set.

The closing scenes of The Cable Guy are troubling, and involve a suicide attempt that’s actually quite poetic; Chip decides to end his life by jumping off a massive satellite dish to his death. Fortunately he is spared, but through his flashbacks to his childhood we see how sympathetic of a character he really is.

Recent Interviews and Public Appearances Show His More Serious Side

     Paramount Pictures

When interviewed during fashion week, Jim Carrey said to Catt Sadler, ““There’s no meaning to any of this, so I wanted to find the most meaningless thing that I could come to and join, and here I am. I mean, you gotta admit, it’s pretty meaningless.” We mentioned method acting, but this was something entirely different. Maybe Carrey just wanted to wax philosophical for a moment, or maybe he was trying to be in a certain headspace for a role, but one thing that’s for certain was he wasn’t trying to be funny. His delivery in the interview did elicit laughter, but mostly because it was so out of left-field that it was uncomfortable. Maybe we’re onto something about comedy turning into drama when you remove the punchline!

Deep Down He Is a Sensitive Artist

     Copyright 2017 Jim Carrey

Jim Carrey is an avid painter and artist. The documentary I Needed Color dives into Carrey’s exploration of the visual arts and shows an artist deep at work in his studio. His reclusive nature and his passion for painting shows us that it’s the same Jim Carrey that brought us Liar Liar, but toned down and a little more pensive. When an artist or actor has range, sometimes they need to channel different energies to get all of their creativity out, and I Needed Color makes it clear in no uncertain terms that Jim Carrey is one of those artists.

Listen, we all hold Ace Ventura and Fun WIth Dick and Jane near and dear to our hearts, but when Carrey gets existential and sentimental in films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it makes us want to see more dramatic roles from one of our favorite serious funnymen.