Carrey, 62, has slowed down the number of projects he has starred in recent years.
The legendary comedic actor starred in only seven major projects from 2015-2022, before announcing he was retiring.
Sonic the Hedgehog was actually his first role in a major studio film since 2014’s Dumb and Dumber To.
He said in 2022, after reprising his role as Dr Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog 2: “Well, I’m retiring. Yeah, probably. I’m being fairly serious.”
He said this to Access Hollywood on the press tour for the sequel to the live action version of the Sega classic series.
He went on to say: “It depends. If the angels bring some sort of script that’s written in gold ink that says to me that it’s going to be really important for people to see, I might continue down the road, but I’m taking a break.
“I really like my quiet life and I really like putting paint on canvas and I really love my spiritual life and I feel like —and this is something you might never hear another celebrity say as long as time exists — I have enough.
“I’ve done enough. I am enough.”
Clearly the script written in gold ink was, in actual fact, another Sonic film, as he is set to star in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, alongside Idris Elba, Keanu Reeves, Ben Schwartz, Krysten Ritter, and James Marsden.
Discussing why he decided to overturn his retirement to star in the threequel, Carrey addressed the idea that he would only return for a script written in gold ink, saying: “That might’ve been hyperbole, yeah.
“I came back to this universe because I get to play a genius, which is a bit of a stretch. And you know, I bought a lot of stuff and I need the money, frankly.”
The third film in the series has added a huge name in Keanu Reeves, after adding Idris Elba in the second film and debuting with Jim Carrey from the very first movie.
Reeves is set to play Shadow the Hedgehog, a role he prepared for ‘intensely’.
He said: “For 50 years, Shadow has been in a state of suspended animation.
“He’s coming out of it seeking revenge. It was really the internal journey to get to the anger and the emotion. It was intense.
“Sonic 3 and playing Shadow… it’s really on another level.”
Discussing Keanu Reeves joining the cast, Carrey said: “When I heard that Keanu Reeves wanted to play Shadow I went, ‘Oh alright’.
“Shadow has that sympathetic, brooding kind of darkness that Keanu has mastered so brilliantly.”
It’s nearly 30 years since the Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels movie premiered in cinemas on 16 December, 1994 (the film’s premiere took place 10 days earlier) and the flick has since been labelled a classic by fans.
The film tells the story of Lloyd Christmas (Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Daniels), two well meaning friends who set out on a cross country road-trip to return a briefcase – unaware that it was actually left as ransom money.
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To celebrate the film’s 30th birthday, actress Karen ‘Duff’ Duffy, who played the film’s hitmen, shared a list of trivia about the film with PEOPLE – including a particularly grim medical scare which happened to Carrey while on set.
Turns out that Carrey had to take time off from filming after suffering a pretty grim gallbladder attack while on set.
“We were filming in the airport one day, and Jim doubled over and was rolling around,” Duffy recalled.
Unfortunately for Carrey, it took crew a short while to take his pain seriously as several people thought he was just joking around.
This wasn’t even the most bizarre part of the story either, as Duffy asked to actor if he’d give her his gallstones after they were removed in surgery – to which Carrey agreed.
However Duffy’s plan to reuse the gallstones – which are hardened deposits of digestive fluid which form – as a gift for her co-star was never realised, as he gave them away before she could make it to the hospital.
“He said okay. I was going to make him a set of cufflinks with them. And then I went to visit him in the hospital, and he told me he’d given them to the girl he was seeing,” she added.
Which is certainly an interesting gift to share with someone you’re seeing, let’s put it that way.
Duffy isn’t the only Dumb and Dumber alum whose mentioned Carrey’s gallbladder trouble over the years either, with writers Bobby and Peter Farrelly recalling the moment during promotion for 2014’s sequel Dumb and Dumber To, revealing that the actor had to film a fight scene.
“The first day that he came back from the surgery, we had him do this fight scene with Jeff where they’re fighting over the briefcase and they’re rolling around,” says Bobby explained to Hollywood Reporter at the time.
It’s not unusual for people outside of Hollywood to consult on films in order to provide accuracy. However, when you think about The Grinch, the next thing which comes to mind probably isn’t the US intelligence agency.
And yet, this is exactly what happened on set of Ron Howard’s adaption of the Dr. Seuss classic.
But how, you ask? Well, Carrey himself has explained exactly how this happened during an interview on The Graham Norton Show.
During the interview Norton asked Carrey about a rumour that he’d previously trained with the navy seals and whether or not it was true. The 62-year-old confirmed that he had never trained with the Navy Seals, but he’d needed help from the CIA in order to get into character of the Grinch.
“When I did The Grinch, the make-up was like being buried alive every day,” he explained, adding that it took ‘eight and a half hours’ to get into the famous green get-up.
“The makeup was like being buried alive, every day.”
The extensive prosthetics quickly took a toll on Carrey, with the actor recalling how he put his leg ‘through the wall’ in his trailer during a moment of frustration.
Grazer decided to call in a favour from a CIA operative who had experience in training agents in how to withstand torture.
Carrey was then taught how to do a series of ‘distraction techniques’ to get through the feeling of being held prisoner in his costume.
“If you’re freaking out and spiralling downward, turn the television on, change a pattern, or have someone you know come up and smack you in the head, punch yourself in the leg, or smoke – smoke as much as you possibly can,” he explained.
“So that’s how I got through the Grinch.”
It’s quite a bizarre mental image to imagine Carrey smoking from a ‘giant cigarette holder’ so the hairy costume wouldn’t go up in flames and punching himself in the leg to get through acting in a children’s film.
The CIA torture methods weren’t the only techniques Carrey used either, with the acting that he also listened to The Bee Gees during his hundreds of times in the make-up chair.
We can only imagine how baffling the entire scenario must’ve looked to an outsider.
Carrey, now 62, has been a household name for decades, taking on heaps of iconic characters, including Ace Ventura, the Grinch, Bruce Nolan and Hank Evans.
He’s had a seriously impressive career, but recently claimed he ‘doesn’t exist’ and has always been one of his many characters.
Back in 2017, Carrey sat down with TIFF, where he spoke about his career. During the chat, he claimed that ‘Jim Carrey’ is one of the many characters he’s played over the years.
“I don’t exist, they’re all characters that I played, including Jim Carrey, including Joel Barish,” he said.
“They’re all characters. Jim Carrey was a less intentional character because I thought I was just building something people would like, but it was a character.
