Page 3 Profile: Jim Carrey, actor

Jim Carey (Getty images)

Ssssmokin!!!!

Jim Carrey’s come a long way since painting his famously rubbery face green in his breakthrough role in The Mask. Since then, he’s played a (TV show) guinea pig, the Grinch and God, but his latest role is causing problems. He’s pulled out of the promotional tour for the cartoon book spin-off Kickass 2, in which he plays Colonel Stars and Stripes, because he believes it’s too violent in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting. He posted on Twitter: “I did Kickass a month b4 Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence.” He added: “My apologies to others involved with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart.”

How bad is it?

Spoiler alert! It’s pretty gruesome. The first film included a Taleban-esque web-streamed torture scene complete with knuckle-dusters, hammers and baseball bats; an 11-year-old girl using the c-word; and her brutal beating at the hands of an adult man.

Maybe it clashed with his summer holidays

Or it might be that he is a keen advocate of gun control. Canadian-born but naturalised as a US citizen, he’s taken flak for speaking out on the issue. He wrote in a blog post in April: “I would trade my money, my fame, my reputation and legacy if there were the slightest chance of preventing the anguish of another Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, or Sandy Hook Elementary School. I ask you, truly, what manner of human being would not?”

But Mark Millar, the creator of the Kickass comic, says he’s “baffled” by Carrey’s change of heart, saying he knew full well it contained violence. He added: “I’ve never quite bought the notion that violence in fiction leads to violence in real life any more than Harry Potter casting a spell creates more Boy Wizards in real life.”