Funnyman Jim Carrey has claimed that his latest film mirrors his own journey out of depression. He has made audiences laugh for years, but he has been battling back bouts of depression, which gained him a reputation for being unpredictable on sets and threatened to ruin his life.
The 47-year-old actor, who takes prescription drugs to battle his mood disorder, said that starring as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol helped him find perspective in his own life.
Carrey told The Mirror: “Everybody loves a good transformational story – somebody who sees the light and finds out what’s important in life. It was wonderful to get to the bottom of a character I’ve seen done a hundred different ways.”
“There’s more light now,” says the Canadian actor whose latest film, an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, is out today.
“I created tools to help my treatment and I went down a path with some amazing scientific minds who are using supplemental treatments for depression.”
He also revealed that leading a healthy lifestyle and becoming stepfather to Jenny McCarthy’s 6-year-old son Evan, who is autistic, has assisted him in discovering “more light”.
Carrey added: “I’m so happy to have a beautiful family and to be able to sit there with Evan showing him clips of the movie. I took him through the scary parts and told him the ghost was coming and he loved it.”
Mental health problems struck in 1994, when he was on the verge of becoming a star, with the consecutive releases of Jim’s hits Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask and Dumb & Dumber.
But after two failed marriages, Jim began to rely on prescription drugs to help him stay positive. Family ties have definitely helped him. Carrey has been together with former Playboy pin-up Jenny McCarthy for the past three years and he clearly thrives in her company.
When Jim Carrey caught the first glimpse of his screen image as a grumpy old scrooge, he was surprised to see someone really quite familiar staring back at him.
“It’s so spooky to me,” admits Carrey, who underwent a rigorous process of “performance capture” with computerised cameras alongside co-stars Bob Hoskins, Colin Firth and Gary Oldman, while bringing Dickens’ immortal classic to life in its newest and most technologically-advanced version yet.
“I just had a feeling that if I was true to my own thoughts about the character, it would pop out as something different and actually, though not behaviourally, the character looks exactly like my father!
“So I guess I got a glimpse of what I’ll look like when I’m old!”
