Robert Kent

However, this amazingly talented actor was born and raised in Canada. He started his show business career at the age of 15. He began entertaining audiences in comedy clubs in Toronto. He quickly became known as a stand-up comic with a real talent for off-beat humour. In 1981 Carrey moved to Los Angeles where he performed regularly at the famous Comedy Store. A year later he took the starring role in an American television series called Duck Factory. At the same time he appeared in his first film, a vampire comedy called First Bitten.

Ace Ventura
American audiences then saw Carrey on television in 1994 in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. As Ventura, Carrey created an unforgettable sleuth tracking down animals rather than people in the urban jungle of modern America. A year later Carrey launched this character in the first of the Ace Ventura films and established himself instantly as a world-wide box office megastar. He has never been anything else since.

The Mask
Carrey then achieved a cult status with his next film, The Mask. Here Carrey plays a character whose conservative approach to life is turned inside out when he puts on a magical mask. Carrey’s face in this film is as magical as his character’s mask. It is better than almost anything ever drawn in a comic book.

Liar, Liar
Carrey’s next blockbuster comedy, Dumb and Dumber, took him to even greater success in 1995. This film was voted ‘Favourite Film’ in the USA by The People’s Choice Awards. And then, in 1997, Carrey achieved the impossible. He bettered all his previous performances on the silver screen. In Liar, Liar he plays a silver-tongued lawyer to whom lying is a way of life. The lawyer’s world is turned upside down when his son’s birthday wish forces him to tell the truth - and nothing but the truth - for a full 24 hours. Carrey’s character creates chaos all around him and life will never be the same again.

The Truman Show
And with The Truman Show, Carrey ensures his place for ever in the comedy superstar hall of fame. In this movie Carrey plays Truman Burbank. Burbank sees himself as a totally average man who, at thirty, is totally content with his lot in life. However, a number of strange events makes Burbank wonder if life in the picture-perfect town of Seahaven is all that it seems.

In fact, without knowing it, Burbank is the star of The Truman Show, the most popular and longest running documentary-soap opera on American television. Seahaven is, in fact, nothing more than a giant film set. Everyone Burbank meets is really a paid actor. Fly-on-the-wall cameras capture every second of Burbank’s existence on earth. The result is wonderfully funny.

In this world-within-a-world, Carrey creates a character whose experiences reflect all the tensions, fears and hopes of modern man at the end of the twentieth century. In this sense, Carrey’s character is a True Man who speaks to us all. There is no doubt that The Truman Show is set to become a classic of comedy and one of the best films of all time.

Source: English Digest

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