(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Wed 8 October 2025 12:02, UK
America’s most goofy and beloved comedy actor Jim Carrey enjoyed a meteoric rise to superstardom as the versatile face behind iconic characters of the 1990s, such as Ace Ventura, Stanley Ipkis, the Joker, Lloyd Christmas and, of course, Ernie ‘Chip’ Douglas, the cable guy.
As the American answer to Rowan Atkinson, Carrey made his millions through a superhuman ability for wacky humour and seamless impressions. It transformed him from a comic trying to get on SNL to being the highest-paid movie star in the world.
Carrey’s remarkable knack for facial contortion and slapstick sense of humour put him in good standing for a career in comedy acting from an early age. Although he was well aware of his abilities, it would take a hard graft over the 1980s before the real rewards were reaped. However, one of the most significant setbacks in Carrey’s early career was a failed audition for Saturday Night Live.
Towards the end of the 1990s, Carrey broadened his cinematic scope. More serious, dramatic roles in movies like Man on the Moon, The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind successfully balanced his filmography. They proved that his skill set scales far beyond physical comedy. Since that time, Carrey has continued to establish himself as one of the finer actors of his generation, picking up roles in everything from tragedian epics to children’s movies.
Though Carrey is considered one of the greatest actors not to have received an Academy Award nomination, a career in comedy movies is rarely conducive to a stacked trophy cabinet. As Carrey proved in his smaller collection of more serious roles, he has a sound understanding of quality cinema, and has rarely offered himself up for roles he didn’t believe in.
Jim Carrey with Jack Black in ‘Cable Guy’. (Credit: Sony)
In his 2020 book, Memoirs and Misinformation: A Novel, Carrey revealed Sidney Lumet’s 1976 satirical drama Network as one of his favourite movies. The Bruce Almighty actor noted the classic film’s importance as an absurd reflection of contemporary post-industrial development and capitalist greed.
“My favourite movie of all time is Network,” he wrote. The picture is a much-loved piece of powerful cinema that has since been seen as a prescient vision of the lifespan of society, regularly picked up and adored by the latest run of dissatisfied students. For Carrey, it was much the same feeling: “I like the character of Paddy Chayefsky. It’s like a prophecy of what happened in the last 50 years. Every actor scores immensely. It’s phenomenal.”
In an earlier interview with fellow comedian Norm Macdonald, the late star asked Carrey to name his favourite movie. “My favourite movie? Network. It’s fantastic. Every scene in that movie is a smorgasbord.” There’s probably no greater compliment from Carrey, an actor who is rarely entertained by the mundane.
His appreciation of the picture has come in line with his own understanding of society. As the years have passed, Carrey has continued to become more mystic and altruistic in his view of the world. He has often been vocal in his criticism, not just of Hollywood but of society in general. But he also saw the value in The Network‘s less notable scene.
“Now that I’m a little older too, you can look back on that movie and see William Holden and Faye Dunaway in the kitchen scene, and he’s saying, ‘I’m closer to the end than the beginning,’ and ‘Death has become a real thing with definable features’, I mean fuck who writes that? That is incredible.”
The 1976 classic stars Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch and Robert Duvall and follows the story of an uncompromising television network that exploits the entertaining ramblings of a deranged former anchor about the industry for its own gain. Naturally, this precarious dynamic begins to deteriorate.
If you were looking for a movie to represent the comedy, tragedy and curt criticism of society that Jim Carrey, the man, possesses, then The Network is one such movie that might well fit the bill perfectly.
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