Jim Carrey shared his thoughts on Jesus - and an impressive painting of the Son of God - in a new documentary short called I Needed Color.
In the video, the popular comedian reveals his love of painting and the visual arts - and how it helps him connect to his "inner life."
"You can tell what I love by the color of the paintings," he says in the video, posted to Vimeo. "You can tell my inner life by the darkness in some of them and you can tell what I want from the brightness in some of them."
In one scene, Carrey paints a picture of stunning picture of Jesus and explains that the "energy" surrounding Christ is "electric".
Carrey says Jesus' energy is
"I don't know if Jesus is real, I don't know if he lived, I don't know what he means, but the paintings of Jesus are really my desire to convey Christ's consciousness," Carrey admitted. "I wanted you to have the feeling when you look in his eyes that he was accepting of who you are. I wanted him to be able to stare at you and heal you from the pain."
He adds, "You can find every race in the face of Jesus. I think that's how every race imagines Jesus; they imagine him as their own."
Jim Carrey's depiction of Jesus Christ
In the short film, directed by David Bushell, Carrey also shares how painting has helped him heal from an emotionally traumatic past few years.
"I sketched all the time, but I didn't do a lot of painting," he says. "Suddenly, 6 years ago, at a time when I was trying to heal a broken heart, I decided, 'Well, maybe I'll paint.' "
He continued: "When I really started painting a lot, I had become so obsessed that there was no where to move in my home," he says. "Paintings were everywhere. I found myself looking around, it was a really bleak winter in New York and it was just so depressing. And I think I needed color."
He explains, "I like the independence of it. I love the freedom of it. No one else tells you what you can or can't do, most of the time. And there's an immediacy to it."
While the "Dumb and Dumber" actor has previously said "I'm a Buddhist, I'm a Christian, I'm a Muslim, I'm whatever you want me to be", he also frequently talks about his fascination with Jesus. As earlier reported, he recently offered hope to a room full of formerly incarcerated people and reminded them that, like Jesus Christ, they chose to "walk through the gate of forgiveness to grace."
"I believe that this room is filled with God," Carrey began a speech delivered at Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles-based organization that provides help to formerly incarcerated people and those who've been involved in gangs.
"You are heroes to me, and I admire you," he continued. "When you stepped through these doors, you decided to be a part of this family. You've made a decision to transcend and to leave darkness behind, and it takes a champion to make that decision."
Carrey, who has been open about his battles with depression, told those gathered he's had "challenges" himself over the past few years.
"Ultimately, I believe that suffering leads to salvation," he said. "In fact, it's the only way...that we have to, somehow, accept, not deny, but feel our suffering and feel our losses. And then, we make one of two decisions. We either decide to go through the gate of resentment, which leads to vengeance, which leads to self harm, which leads to harm to others. Or, we go through the gate of forgiveness, which leads to grace."
The actor told attendees that "your being here is an indication that you've made that decision already."
"You've made the decision to walk through the gate of forgiveness to grace," he said. "Just as Christ did on the cross. He suffered terribly and He was broken by it, to the point of doubt and a feeling of absolutely abandonment, which all of you have felt. Then there was a decision to be made. And the decision was to look upon the people who were causing that suffering with compassion and with forgiveness, and that's what opens the gates of heaven for all of us. I wish that for all of you. I wish that for myself."
Jim Carrey: I Needed Color from SGG on Vimeo.
