Clones are everywhere. Last week I talked about the rumor that actor Selena Gomez is a clone or a double (she is not). This week, it’s Jim Carrey. Many online are wondering whether the rubber-faced comedian/actor is not what he seems to be. Maybe he’s a clone. Maybe he has a doppelgänger. Maybe it’s a prank.
This is all obviously dumb, but unlike the Selena Gomez story, there’s some evidence that supports the idea. It’s not good evidence, but it’s at least a little more interesting than most conspiracy theories.
Why people think Jim Carrey is a lookalike
The theories started flying last week, when Jim Carrey was given the César Award in Paris. The 64-year-old comedian hasn’t been seen much in public for the past couple of years, and he delivered a speech in French at the awards presentation, despite never having publicly spoken the language. And he looked different than he used to. See for yourself:
This was enough evidence for the world’s conspiracy theorists to conclude that Carrey is a clone, or that he has been replaced by a multilingual double or something. So people took to X, instagram, and TikTok to spread the theory in posts like this:
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And this:
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His eyes are a different color, people said. His face has a totally different shape. Not the same guy, they concluded. But the rabbit hole goes deeper than just “he looks different.”
The Alexis Stone connection
On March 1, Alexis Stone, an online person, seemed to take credit for portraying Carrey at the award show with the following post on Instagram bearing the caption “Alexis Stone as Jim Carrey in Paris.”
Stone has gained over a million followers online for their ability to impersonate celebrities to an uncanny level using latex and special effects makeup. Check out this Jack Nicholson:
So it’s not impossible, right?
Jim Carrey has admitted to using doubles in the past
It wasn’t long before internet sleuths tracked down a David Letterman interview with Carrey where he says he’s used a “Jim Carrey double.” “I send him off in one direction, and he sucks all the press in that direction, and I can just have my day,” Carrey told David Letterman.
So he admits it! The plot thickens.
Wouldn’t it be like Jim Carrey to do this?
Carrey is no stranger to pranking the media. During the filming of the Andy Kaufman bio pic Man on the Moon, Carrey would show up to the set dressed as Kaufman’s alter ego Tony Clifton, refusing to break character and abusing the crew and director Milos Forman. He supposedly re-ignited Andy Kaufman’s feud with wrestler Jerry Lawler. In the behind-the-scenes documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, Carrey says he “lost himself” in the character of Kaufman. So maybe Carrey pulled the prank himself as publicity stunt for a movie. If anyone could pull it off, surely it would Jim Carrey.
To recap: Jim Carrey is known for pranking the media; he showed up out of nowhere in Paris, spoke a different language, doesn’t look the same, admits to using doubles in the past, and Alexis Stone seems to have taken credit for appearing as Carrey’s double. So is it really that far-fetched to think that this could be the one real case of a celebrity double?
Yes, it is that far-fetched.
Why Jim Carrey is not a clone and there is no Jim Carrey double
It was not a clone. As discussed in this column previously, human cloning is theoretically possible, but you can only clone embryos, not full-grown Canadian comedians, so unless the switcharoo was planned in the early 1960s, it wasn’t a clone that accepted the César Award for Jim Carrey last weekend.
It was not a body double, either. If Stone had appeared as Carrey, why would they do such a bad job? Why wouldn’t fake Jim Carrey look how people expect him to look? Why go with the wrong face shape and the wrong eye color? Besides, latex face appliances can look good in photos, but as soon as someone wearing it tries to talk, it’s obviously fake.
It was Jim Carrey. His people confirmed it, but even if they hadn’t, it would still be obvious. Carrey’s French was halting, because he’d learned it just to give that speech. His comments to Letterman were a joke, because he’s a comedian. While the actor has pranked the media in the past, the César Award is as prestigious a filmic honor as there is; it’s not the kind of thing you mess with. Besides, Carrey attended the ceremony with an entourage of 16 people, including his daughter Jane, his grandson Jackson, and his girlfriend Mina. So are they all in on it? Or did the double fool them too?
The most compelling evidence that the man who spoke at the French awards show last week was the real Jim Carrey is that he looks exactly like Jim Carrey. It’s the same eye color: In dark-eyed people, bright, direct light can make brown eyes appear lighter. It’s the same face. He looks older than he did when he was Ace Ventura, and he looks like he had cosmetic work done, but that is Jim Carrey, and no matter how many lines people draw on downloaded images, it’s still going to be Jim Carrey.