Jim Carrey Shares Throwback With Chris Farley Shortly After Anniversary Of His Death

Jim Carrey in Liar Liar and Chris Farley in Tommy Boy
(Image credit: Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures)

On December 18, 1997, the world most Chris Farley, who was a standout during his time on Saturday Night Live and starred in movies like Wayne’s World and Tommy Boy. Nearly 25 years after his death, Farley is still fondly remembered by many people, including fellow comedic actor Jim Carrey. While the two actors never starred in a project together, their paths did cross, and Carrey shared a throwback photo of one of those times.

A few days after the 24th anniversary of Chris Farley’s passing, Jim Carrey shared the below photo on his Twitter page of the two of them together. Combine that with Carrey’s accompanying caption, and you might want to have some tissues nearby.

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Judging by the shirt Chris Farley is wearing that says “Championship Martial Arts Academy,” this picture was likely taken during the time he was working on Beverly Hills Ninja or sometime afterwards. Around this period, Jim Carrey was entertaining audiences with movies like Liar Liar and The Cable Guy. Carrey also hosted his first episode of SNL in 1996, although by that point, Farley had already exited the NBC sketch series. 

While it’s unfortunate that Jim Carrey and Chris Farley acted opposite one another, they do have some shared professional history. Originally Farley was approached to play The Cable Guy’s eponymous character, but when he declined the role due to scheduling conflicts, Carrey was brought in. As far as their personal history goes, Carrey recalled back in 2020 on Lights Out with David Spade the time Farley entertained a lot of children at a birthday party, no doubt just one of many memorable moments these two had while around each other. It’s good to know that after all this time, Carrey still thinks fondly of the Black Sheep actor.

Prior to his death, Chris Farley had a number of major projects lined up, such as a Fatty Arbuckle biopic and a film adaptation of A Confederacy of Dunces. Farley had also recorded most of his dialogue as Shrek’s title character, but after he died, Mike Myers was hired to take over the role. The other projects were either shelved or, like Shrek, went through necessary changes to account for the actor’s absence. Farley’s final two movies, Almost Heroes and Dirty Work, were released in 1998.

As for Jim Carrey, his recent credits include leading the short-lived Showtime series Kidding and playing Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog. He’ll reprise the latter role next year in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which will see Robotnik teaming up with Idris Elba’s Knuckles. It was also rumored in early 2020 that Carrey was being looked at to play Theodore Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, in a biopic about the author who penned books like The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs & Ham, though there hasn’t been any official word on his potential involvement since then.

You can count on CinemaBlend to pass along the biggest news items concerning Jim Carrey’s career, as well as any other heartwarming pictures or stories about Chris Farley. Our 2022 release schedule is also available to look through if you’re curious about what movies are coming out next year.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.