The Mask at 30: How Jim Carrey Became More than a Cartoon

Hollywood didn’t quite know what to do with Jim Carrey. The rubber-faced comedian could leave an impression in a supporting role like in Earth Girls Are Easy or with his demented recurring character “Fire Marshall Bill” on In Living Color, but was he really a leading man? Could he carry a comedy if all he did was make funny faces? But 1994 was where everything clicked together for Carrey thanks to the lineup of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Dumb and Dumber and The Mask. For adolescent boys of that era (like me), Carrey was a god, and a man talking through his butt was the height of comedy. But looking back 30 years later, we can see that it was not only The Mask, but the man behind the green face that cemented Carrey as someone who could work within a traditional leading man mold.

In The Mask, Carrey plays Stanley Ipkiss, a self-proclaimed “nice guy” (not considered the major red flag in 1994 it would be today) who can’t catch a break. His landlady is mean to him, his mechanics take advantage of him, and he seems doomed to a life of sad anonymity in the fictional Edge City. When he thinks he sees a man drowning, Stanley rushes into the bay to save him, only to discover that it’s a pile of trash with a strange mask on top. Stanley brings the mask home, and when he tries it on, it transforms him into a live-action cartoon, his id come to life to wreak havoc and live out the fantasies that Stanley is too timid to pursue.

If you look at Ace Ventura and the character of The Mask (and even a bit of Dumb and Dumber’s Lloyd Christmas), you see that Carrey excels at playing over-the-top cartoon characters. The Mask director Chuck Russell even remarked that they were able to ease up on the VFX budget simply because Carrey could manipulate and contort his face in such extreme ways that they could let his expression and the makeup do the work. Carrey is able to still manipulate a face housing giant false teeth, so that every time The Mask exits a scene he has a little bit of a jaw wiggle as a signature, giving him an even more Looney Tunes-like appeal.

That energetic explosiveness became Carrey’s signature, but it would never be enough to build an entire career upon. There are only so many characters who require the actor to be a live-action cartoon, and as Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls shows, there’s also only so much mileage you’re going to get from being the loudest, silliest character on screen. It’s one thing to have Ace come in and make life miserable for a bunch of stuffy rich people or the front office of an NFL team, but it grates when he’s being loud and obnoxious around a tribe from the fictional Nibia. When Nature Calls even acknowledges how irritating Ace is when, early on, the monks he was staying with throw a party after he leaves; it doesn’t exactly scream, “Get ready for 90 minutes of fun!” when other characters are overjoyed to be rid of an irritant.

That’s where the importance of Stanley Ipkiss comes in. Although Carrey had done the mild-mannered thing before in 1985’s Once Bitten, this time the film pivoted on drawing a clear distinction between the outlandish Mask and his everyman alter ego. Could a guy with a clear comic persona play an everyman? And furthermore, could he play someone who wasn’t just the guy who takes up screen time between bouts of playing The Mask, but someone the audience would root for and care about even when he’s not leading a musical number of “Cuban Pete?” The film’s challenge for Carrey isn’t to bounce around as The Mask; the challenge is Stanley.

And it’s with Stanley that Carrey proves he’s got the charisma and charm to lead a picture even if he’s not mugging for the camera. In The Mask, Stanley’s buddy Charlie is played by the late comic Richard Jeni. Both Carrey and Jeni were accomplished stand-ups, but when you put them side-by-side in this film, Jeni never seems to be at ease on screen the way Carrey is as Stanley. Jeni’s performance feels a bit forced and stilted where Carrey effortlessly moves between The Mask and the “nice guy” of Stanley. Stanley still gets comic moments, but he’s more restrained. When he shows up at the Coco Bongo club in a terrible loaner car, Stanley puts on a brave face, smiling and shouting to the patrons in line, “It’s a classic!” Though Stanley is largely put upon, he tries to approach things with good humor; meanwhile, The Mask is kind of a chaotic good, punching back at those who belittle Stanley. The Mask is pure cartoon, but Stanley isn’t a bland drip. He has charm and jokes, but Carrey is rarely doing anything outlandish, like a silly voice or mugging for the camera, since such behavior would negate the transformation into The Mask.

Without Stanley Ipkiss, Carrey may have been pigeonholed only into ridiculous or buffoonish characters—an actor for adolescent boys, but no one else. While Stanley may not be the most memorable part of The Mask, he is an essential element in getting larger audiences to buy Carrey as more than a goofball. You need Stanley if you’re going to have the baseline normalcy of Liar Liar. That normalcy then gets you to dramas like The Truman Show, The Majestic and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Carrey never completely gave up his cartoonishness, which would be needed for movies like A Series of Unfortunate Events and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but range established in The Mask helped to expand him beyond a single comic type into a bona fide leading man. Carrey spouting quips like, “Somebody stop me!” and “Ssssssssmokin!” made The Mask a quotable hit in 1994, but it was the inherent charm in the aggressively normal Stanley Ipkiss that made Carrey more than just a goofy face in the long term.

Matt Goldberg is a former editor for Turner Classic Movies and Collider. Based in Atlanta, he has covered movies professionally since 2006. You can find his latest writing by checking out his newsletter, Commentary Track.