Yesterday, on CBS Sunday Morning, Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon were interviewed about their new book Memoirs and Misinformation, a fearless semi-autobiographical novel that is just as much fiction as it is memoir.
Over an eight-year period, Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon fashioned a story about acting, Hollywood, agents, celebrity, privilege, friendship, romance, addiction to relevance, fear of personal erasure, our "one big soul," Canada, and a cataclysmic ending of the world--apocalypses within and without.
In his book, Carrey "casts himself as a flawed leading man (like the one in "Bruce Almighty"), and in the book he lives in a "Truman Show"-like world where it's often hard to tell where the fantasy ends and reality begins."
He's an insanely successful and beloved movie star drowning in wealth and privilege--but he's also lonely. Maybe past his prime. He's tried diets, gurus, and cuddling with his military-grade Israeli guard dogs, but nothing seems to lift the cloud of emptiness and ennui. Even the sage advice of his best friend, actor and dinosaur skull collector Nicolas Cage, isn't enough to pull Carrey out of his slump.
But then Jim meets Georgie: ruthless ingénue, love of his life. And with the help of auteur screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, he has a role to play in a boundary-pushing new picture that may help him uncover a whole new side to himself--finally, his Oscar vehicle! Things are looking up!
But the universe has other plans.
Despite the book being fiction, in Carrey's own words, "None of this is real and all of it is true." Memoirs and Misinformation gives readers a peak into who Carrey is: as a comedian, an author, and, most vulnerable of all, a person.
