Jim Carrey recently reflected on his “psychotic†experience channeling Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon and got pretty philosophical about the imaginary line between “real people†and “characters,†telling The Hollywood Reporter that playing Kaufman made him realize that he had been playing a character his whole life already: “We spend our life running around looking for anchors. ‘Oh, I’m Italian, that’s who I am.’ The fact is you don’t exist,†he said. “You’re nothing but ideas. We take all those ideas and cobble them together and make sort of a personality charm bracelet, an ID bracelet we wear in life. But that’s not who we are, because we’re nothing. And it’s such a fucking relief.â€
Carrey’s been making headlines this weekend for the above clip from E! News, where he was interviewed at a New York Fashion Week event on Friday only to inform the interviewer that everything and everyone is completely meaningless. “I believe we’re a field of energy dancing for itself, and I don’t care,†he says. “There is no me. There’s just things happening, and there are clusters of tetrahedrons moving around together … Here’s the thing: It’s not our world. We don’t matter. There’s the good news.â€Â Maybe if more people embarked on overnight Native American vision quests in the Mojave Desert, Carrey’s philosophy wouldn’t be considered by so many to be “baffling†and “off the rails.â€