Jim Carrey’s Unsuccessful ‘SNL’ Audition Was Even Weirder Than You’d Expect

Jim Carrey got his start on “In Living Color,” but it wasn’t the first sketch-comedy show he auditioned for. The actor, painter, and increasingly outspoken Trump Administration critic appeared at the New Yorker Festival to discuss his new Showtime series “Kidding” last night and, according to Vulture, recalled the bad omen that preceded his unsuccessful “Saturday Night Live” tryout.

“I got out of the car in the parking lot, and there was a person trying to work up the guts to commit suicide on the building on NBC in Burbank, and I walked into the building not knowing whether he did it,” he said.

“All the new crews were gathering around the building. I went, That’s not probably a good sign,” Carrey added. He wasn’t wrong, as he ultimately wasn’t cast on the show — though he did eventually get his big break years later.

“I wasn’t at the Jim Carrey audition,” Lorne Michaels has said, “but somebody who was there said, ‘I don’t think Lorne would like it,’ and they were probably wrong, but it doesn’t matter. Or maybe they were right — who knows? No one gets it all right.”