Jim Carrey Honours Late Mask Director Chuck Russell As Career's 'Jewel'

The comedian and actor paid public tribute to Chuck Russell this week, calling the 1994 supernatural comedy a jewel in his career and praising the director's gift for conjuring wonder on set.

Chuck Russell, director of the 1994 hit The Mask, died at the age of 74.
Jim Carrey posted a public tribute describing the experience of making the film as a privilege.
Carrey credited Russell with creating an atmosphere of wonder that shaped the production.
The Mask was a career-defining moment for Carrey, released the same summer as Ace Ventura and Dumb and Dumber.
Russell also directed A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and Eraser before The Mask cemented his mainstream reputation.

It was the summer of 1994 when Jim Carrey went from rising comedy star to genuine phenomenon, and a significant portion of that credit belonged to a director who knew exactly how to hold a live wire without getting burned. Chuck Russell, who guided Carrey through the green-faced, zoot-suited chaos of The Mask, died this week at 74. Carrey did not let the moment pass quietly.

In a tribute posted publicly following Russell’s death, Carrey called working with him a privilege and described The Mask as a jewel in his career. He pointed specifically to the atmosphere Russell built on set — one of wonder, a quality that does not arrive by accident on a production where a human actor is required to behave like a Tex Avery cartoon at feature length.

The Mask opened in late July 1994 on a budget of $23 million and grossed over $350 million worldwide. It was the second of three Carrey films to land that calendar year, but the one that showed the widest range of what he could do when the material matched his register. Russell had previous form with high-concept genre work — he co-wrote and directed A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors in 1987 and followed The Mask with the Schwarzenegger action vehicle Eraser in 1996 — but the 1994 film remains the entry most audiences reach for first.

A sequel, Son of the Mask, arrived in 2005 without Carrey or Russell attached, and the less said about that the better. The original still streams regularly and turns up on best-of-the-nineties lists with reliable frequency. Russell’s family has not yet announced memorial arrangements.