The career of Jim Carrey has undergone some interesting changes over the years. After becoming a box office juggernaut in the mid-1990s with the blistering blockbuster run of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, Batman Forever and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, he found the moat with the commercial and critical sweep of Ben Stiller's darkly comic curveball The Cable Guy. The wary actor renewed his commercial bond with mainstream moviegoers the following year with Liar Liar and then took another risk with The Truman Show by Peter Weir. The result was one of the best films of 1998, one that received curious Oscar nominations for Weir (Director), Supporting Actor (Ed Harris) and Original Screenplay (Andrew Nicol). That a film as famous and successful as The Truman Show could be denied Best Picture and Best Actor nods in a down year felt like a rebuke to its star. Many members of the Academy simply could not get over the fact that, just four years earlier, this man was literally talking out of his ass on the big screen.

Oscar voters sent a clear message that year: Carrey had to earn his nomination, which, having been denied in 1999 for his eerily perfect portrayal of Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon, meant a vague semblance of distance and seriousness. is required. This was stupid, and I wonder if it ended up wearing Kerry down. After the prestigious non-starter that was Frank Darabont's The Majestic in 2001, he bounced back with the performance of his career so far in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" by Michel Gondry. More mixed signals: The acclaimed/successful masterpiece received a meager nomination for actress (Kate Winslet) and screenplay (for Gondry, Charlie Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth, which they won), while Carrey got nothing (he was also denied by the Association of screen actors).

Carrey responded with some quality commercial films in Dick and Jane Fun and Yes Man and the lousy thriller The Number 23. Now that the sight of his chatty bum was more than a decade in the rear, the time felt right for another serious film. This is when a hot original screenplay hit Hollywood. An actor with a manic trait is needed. Carrie felt like a perfect fit. The role eventually went to Mel Gibson, and the film flopped. How did such a promising project go wrong?

Kyle Killen's Beaver was on the hottest scenario on the Blacklist in 2008an annual compilation of the film industry's best scripts as voted by Hollywood development executives. It's the bizarrely cathartic story of a toy company CEO who has a nervous breakdown and begins communicating with his estranged family through a beaver doll. In 2009, The Beaver appeared to be a Jodie Foster-directed Jim Carrey-starrer. It ended up on camera with Mel Gibson as the star.

"Beaver" was a crossroads for both actors. By the time the film was released, Gibson was mired in scandals related to allegations of domestic violence by girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, as well as bigoted comments dating back to 1991. The problem with Gibson to this day is that he is an enormously talented actor and director with a penchant for making and starring in hit movies. Foster, who starred alongside Gibson in Richard Donner's Maverick, cast Gibson in the comeback project and, shockingly, no one wanted to see the action star in a quirky dramedy. The film grossed $7.3 million on a $21 million budget.

Would Beaver work with Carey? Yes. I hate to say it, but it worked with Gibson. Jettison the awful baggage Gibson brought to the role and add a talent like Carrey, who shined in the part, and this could have been an Oscar contender. It's an unusual film, but it's also painfully honest and so well directed by Foster. A decade after he didn't make The Beaver, Carrey shows up fiercely devoted to the Sonic the Hedgehog movies. and nothing else. How to beat a genius, Hollywood.