Jim Carrey Was One of the First Actors to Get Paid $20 Million for a Role

Temi Adebowale

February 14, 2020 8:50 PM

While no one could have anticipated the heights that Jim Carrey 's career would reach after he first came to fame on the sketch comedy series In Living Color in 1990, Carrey himself was always sure of his talent. In 1985, he wrote himself a check for $10 million for "acting services rendered," and he dated it for 10 years in the future.

Jim Carrey Was the First to Get $20 Mill Per Role

Fast forward to 1995, and Carrey was a bonafide star, having appeared in movies like The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, Batman Forever, and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. And as you can expect, Carrey's long career has led to a size-able bank account, and reviews for his most recent film, Sonic the Hedgehog have been promisinghere's what we know about Carrey's net worth.

Jim Carrey's net worth is $180 million .

While big paydays are par for the course in Hollywood now, when it was announced that Carrey was going to be paid $20 million for 1996's The Cable Guy, The LA Times called it a "historic and troubling" move.

Industry execs worried about where Carrey's paychecks would go from there, with one anonymous studio head saying that, "If Carrey is getting $20 million, then what are Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Hanks worth?"

In addition to that $20 million, Carrey also reportedly received 15% of every dollar The Cable Guy made at the box office, and the movie went on to make $102 million worldwide , putting Carrey's total payday at about $35 million

1997's Liar Liar saw Carrey earn his second Golden Globe nomination, and 1998's The Truman Show earned the actor his third nomination and first win. The actor continued his streak into more dramatic films with 1999's Man on the Moon, and he received his second Golden Globe in a row for the movie. Forbes estimated that Carrey made $44.5 million that year.

Other notable standouts in Carrey's filmography include 2000's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which is the second highest-grossing Christmas film of all time, and 2003's Bruce Almighty, which became one of the top 20 highest-grossing live-action comedies upon its release. It's still the highest-grossing film of his career , as it made $484 million at the worldwide box office.

Temi Adebowale