The story of a star who wanted to destroy Hollywood
Transience is a constant in the world of Hollywood. In the same way that an anonymous person can become a star in little more than a weekend, there are many examples of icons that are reduced to an irrelevant footer.
But that could never have been the case for Brendan Fraser, whose hyperactive countenance reappeared a few months ago after years away from the spotlight. Neither is Jim Carrey's, who is now back with a new series on one of the most prestigious North American cable networks. His faces are so glued to the smiles of '90s commercial cinema that a return to the high ranks of show business is always welcome by the nostalgic—and by anyone who knows how to value talent.
Especially Carrey, once the first star to earn $20 million per film, had always been expected to make a big comeback. A comeback that excites the red carpets of Los Angeles. It was cheered by the Hollywood upper class at the 2014 Golden Globes, when Carrey walked onstage applauded like the legend he is: "You're right. You're right. I can't argue with you." Us neither.
Carrey returned to the Globes two years later. On that occasion, the actor was already sporting the beard that he would drag for more than a year until his celebrated interview with Jimmy Kimmel in the spring of 2017. When the presenter announced his arrival, Carrey entered the set and stood looking at the audience for more than a minute until he raised his hand to ask for a word: "I just wanted to see what would happen if I stayed like this until they got tired." Carrey never got to check it because it was his hand that calmed the enthusiasm of the stands, not fatigue. The video of that interview accumulates more than 8 million views on YouTube, well above the average for Kimmel's channel.
Just 3 million fewer views has another of Carrey's great viral moments in the last year. During the past New York Fashion Week, the actor dropped by one of the shows and gave an interview tinged with nihilism: "I wanted to find the most insignificant thing that I could go and join... And here I am."
Carrey's interventions sometimes lacked sense, others humorous, but all were consistent with what the actor has been representing all these years. The figure of the star that he wanted to get to Hollywood to destroy it. It is something he says himself in his first cover interview in years and in which The Hollywood Reporter journalist Lacey Rose reviews with him the most important ups and downs of his career. More specifically, the reason the flashbulbs stopped flashing off his corneas every opening weekend and now he prefers the quiet of oil and canvas.
