Jim Carrey took his first TV role since In Living Color with his new Showtime dramedy Kidding. The comedian and his Kidding co-stars Judy Greer and Catherine Keener opened up to ET‘s Nischelle Turner about the show and Carrey shared why this project was the one to draw him back.
“Projects find you when you’re ready to express them. That’s what I find,” Carrey told ET at the Television Critics Association summer press tour. “The ones that you’re drawn to are the ones that, for some reason, you’ve just experienced something very similar or something in your past is lit up by this.”
The 56-year-old actor got a big break as a cast member on the Fox comedy series In Living Color from 1990-1994. He left the show after the release of his blockbuster hit movies, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber.
In Kidding, Carrey portrayed the role of Jeff, a children’s TV icon who goes by the name Mr. Pickles, and who has been beacon of kindness and wisdom to America’s children for generations. But when his life implodes around him, Jeff struggles to adapt to the hardships of life.
The show has a chaotic complexity that even its cast has trouble explaining briefly. “There’s a tragedy but it’s not about a tragedy,” Greer said. “You talk about the innocence and finding the innocence within you that we try so hard to build these walls around, but really we’re all ourselves as children inside.”
“It’s about what happens in the lightning storm when you get hit, when the family gets hit by lightning,” Carrey added. “And the lighting is meant to be. There’s something about it that’s meant to be, that is the craziest, hairiest blessing that could ever happen.”
Kidding is set to premier on Sept. 9 on Showtime.
Hi, cruel world. Meet Mr. Pickles. @JimCarrey stars in a wondrous new #Showtime series, #Kidding. Premiering Sunday, September 9. pic.twitter.com/Ek273Hxxmx
— Kidding (@SHOKidding) August 6, 2018
