In an interview at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival, Carrey tied his existential worldview to his career. After waxing philosophic again about how there is no Jim Carrey and there never was, he explained that he would "disappear for long periods of time" in order to return to the scene with a new skill or attribute. "It's like you cut, you lop your right arm off to learn how to right with your left, and then you sew the right arm back on when you've learned and then you go 'Hey, check it out! [Carrey waves both arms around] You know and then you come back, still you can do the old stuff, but the new stuff is there, too."
But the self-imposed hiatuses are only part of it. When asked how he chose the characters he's played over the years, Carrey said, "They're attracted to whatever that magnetism is at that time. I don't really look for things, and it's the same with painting and sculpting or whatever. I'll just start, and it happens that later on my subconscious mind told me something, just like the scripts tell me something about where I was at, and so, they find me." Of course, we're not trying to knock Carrey's spirituality at all, or even imply that studios would have a problem with it. It's just that they may not be so inclined to option a hot new Ace Ventura 3 script if they have to wait until Carrey is 80 before he's divinely inspired to tackle the role again.
