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The Philosophy of Mr. Jim Carrey

Note to reader: If you're looking for the book Jim Carrey referred to in the interview, I have had on luck in finding the book. So in case you came across this post for that answer - I'm sorry this post is not about the book but something he said. So if you're still interested, please do read on!
I recently saw an interview of actor Jim Carrey on Inside Actors Studio. All of us know him as the pet detective in Ace Ventura, or the crazy guy from The Mask, or just as the most versatile comedian of contemporary times. However the interview showed me a whole different side of the actor. He turned out to be a lighthearted guy with a deep understanding of human nature. 

Towards the later half of the interview James Lipton spoke about a movie called, 'I Love You Phillip Morris'. It is based on the real-life con artist, impostor, prison escapee; Steven Jay Russell; who falls in love with a fellow inmate; Phillip Morris. The movie portrays the same-sex story of both these guys and how they struggle through their relationship. Jim Carrey explains about his conundrum while reading the script for the movie.

He describes the character of Steven Jay Russell as "a guy who has misrepresented himself his entire life". Referring to this guy who has conned thousands of dollars, escaped from prison multiple times and now is serving a 144 year imprisonment in maximum security prison. So this person's personality can be reduced to just a homosexual con-man! But as Jim Carrey further explains the one thing that stood out was the character's relentlessness of love for Phillip Morris.

Jim Carrey further refers to a book called "Anagrams". He references to a belief in the book about "how all of us start out with a notion of ourselves". This notion may be "I am stupid", or "I am only good at X", or "I am worthless" or even "I will never succeed". Then we build our personality around the same notion. Perhaps the notion came into existence because of a failure or maybe even a success. But that's just a single event in the entire life. The event may have the power to change the course of life but it certainly doesn't have the power to restrict our growth. 

Finally he describes acting as the ability to transcend the bullshit going around and get a performance out of it. Perhaps this aptly describes the life. There is always some bullshit flying around us whether we attracted it or it just happens. But success lies in the ability to distract ourselves from the bullshit and "just get on the boat, get your job done and get back home"*.

*Quote from the movie "The Breach".
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