Jim Carrey

In 1985, a broke Jim Carrey wrote himself a check for $10 million, dated it Thanksgiving 1995, and carried it in his wallet until it fell apart. When his father Percy died in 1994, he buried the deteriorated check in the casket. The date hadn't come yet. Ace Ventura, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber all crossed $100 million that same year, and The Cable Guy two years later made him the first actor to earn $20 million upfront for a film. The check came true. Percy didn't see it.

The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind crowd expected Carrey to keep making prestige dramas. He did Yes Man instead, taking no upfront fee and 36.2% of profits, walking out with somewhere between $35 and $50 million. In 2022, he announced he had enough, was enough, done enough, and started turning down $5-6 million roles to paint and make political cartoons. Sonic 3's producers broke through in 2024 by delivering the script written in 24-carat gold ink to match his stated condition for returning. He took a reported $12 million and told AP he needed the money. The retirement was always negotiable.

Carrey's family lost their home when Percy lost his accounting job. They worked factory janitorial shifts, Jim included as a pre-teen, before eventually living out of a Volkswagen camper van. His junior high teachers let him do a few minutes of stand-up at the end of each school day, just to keep him from disrupting class otherwise. He dropped out at 16. That distance from VW van to $20 million per film isn't a rags-to-riches arc. It's what happens when someone with no fallback treats every room like an audition.