Jim Carrey’s Not Kidding: Boasts Creative Fulfillment, Teases Lighter Stories in “Kidding” Season 2 – TCA

Diane Haithman

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Is Jim Carrey finally in a “good place?” We’re not sure after today’s TCA Showtime panel on Kidding. The quirky actor acknowledged his lifelong quest for “meaningful and interesting and satisfying” experiences has reached a peak in recent days. “I couldn’t be in a better place,” he said.

But later, he mildly scolded a questioner in the audience who asked him to confirm that he was in a “good place” right now. “I didn’t say I was in a good place. I said the work was satisfying,” he said. “I have all the sh*t you have going on as well.”

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Good, better, whatever, Carrey’s current creative confluence has him starring as kiddie TV host Jeff Pickles in the dark comedy series, as well as showcasing his political cartoons on Twitter, many lampooning the Trump administration; 50 of those cartoons are on exhibition in an art center in Montreal. He added that he is also launching new projects “that I can’t speak about that are extraordinary” and that he “can’t wait” to announce a few months from now. “(I have) literally an embarrassment of riches creatively right now,” he said onstage.

Lest he come across as overly happy, Carrey acknowledged that he’d rather be home in Hawaii than in Los Angeles, but this is where he needs to be to do Kidding. “I came back from Hawaii to do this,” he said. “I’m here because it’s the right thing to do. But f*ck no, I don’t want to be here. (I live in) a constant state of f*ck no, I don’t want to be here.” However, “It is the role of a lifetime, no other place that’s better for me to be, except Hawaii,” Carrey added later.

Carrey appeared on today’s panel with Dave Holstein (EP, showrunner and writer) and co-stars Catherine Keener and Judy Greer. Mirroring Carrey’s personal blend of euphoria and dissatisfaction, the creative team said the show would continue to reflect the human reality of good and bad, pleasure and pain.

However, Carrey and Holstein said Season 2 would show a little more of the light at the end of the tunnel for the characters. “I think more and more, in this plot as we go along [we will] see that these terrible forces and these wonderful forces all work together,” Carrey said.

Holstein said the new season would have feature more puppets, more songs (seven, including singing appearances by Ariana Grande), and more hopefulness. He and confirmed that Tara Lipinski would return in Season 2.

Holstein said his cell phone became a casualty of Grande’s work because she tagged him in an Instagram post. Millions of “likes” on the post all popped up on Holstein’s phone and it stopped working for a period. “She literally broke my phone,” Holstein said.

Carrey refused to exit his zone of creative satisfaction when asked about the delay of the animated movie Sonic the Hedgehog, in which he plays a role. The movie has been moved from November 2019 to February 2020 for the animators to “fix” the look of the Sonic character.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, I don’t really concern myself with things once I did my thing,” Carrey said. In the digital world, he added, “the ownership of anything is going out the window for all of us.”

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