Jim Carrey - Early Life

Early Life

James Eugene Carrey was born in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada, the son of Kathleen (née Oram), a homemaker, and Percy Carrey (1927-1994), a musician and accountant. He has three older siblings, John, Patricia, and Rita. He was raised Roman Catholic. His mother was of French, Irish, and Scottish descent and his father was of French Canadian ancestry (the family's original surname was Carré). After his family moved to Scarborough, Ontario, when Carrey was 14 years old, he attended Blessed Trinity Catholic School, in North York, for two years, enrolled at Agincourt Collegiate Institute for another year, then briefly attended Northview Heights Secondary School for the remainder of his high school career (all together, he spent three years in Grade 10).

Carrey lived in Burlington, Ontario, for eight years and attended Aldershot High School, where he once opened for 1980s new wave band Spoons. In a Hamilton Spectator interview (February 2007), Carrey remarked, "If my career in show business hadn't panned out I would probably be working today in Hamilton, Ontario at the Dofasco steel mill." When looking across the Burlington Bay toward Hamilton, he could see the mills and thought, "Those were where the great jobs were." At this point, he already had experience working in a science testing facility in Richmond Hill, Ontario.