{"id":2376648,"date":"2026-04-16T21:18:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2376648"},"modified":"2026-04-16T21:18:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:18:24","slug":"william-mcnamara-thought-jim-carrey-was-a-loser-on-set-of-1992-tv-movie-before-people-lined-up-for-his-autograph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/william-mcnamara-thought-jim-carrey-was-a-loser-on-set-of-1992-tv-movie-before-people-lined-up-for-his-autograph\/","title":{"rendered":"William McNamara Thought Jim Carrey Was &#8216;a Loser&#8217; On Set of 1992 TV Movie Before People Lined Up for His Autograph"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<h3 class=\"mb-4 text-lg font-bold\">NEED TO KNOW<\/h3>\n<ul class=\"mb-4\">\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Actor William McNamara is looking back on one of his earliest Hollywood memories \u2014 in which he underestimated a then unknown co-star<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In a new podcast interview, McNamara recounted his time filming the 1992 TV movie <em>Doing Time on Maple Drive<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The cast included a then-unknown actor named Jim Carrey, who McNamara initially thought was &#8220;a loser&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Actor \u2248 is looking back on one of his earliest Hollywood memories \u2014 in which he underestimated a co-star.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">While filming the 1992 TV movie <em>Doing Time on Maple Drive,<\/em> McNamara, now 61, found himself sharing the set with a then-unknown comedian: Jim Carrey. But at their first meeting, McNamara admits he didn\u2019t see star potential.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In an interview on the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9hj9iVs2eU0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Media Path;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Media Path&quot;}\" class=\"link \"><em>Media Path<\/em><\/a> podcast, McNamara shared that, at the read-through for the movie, he was surrounded by other actors, most of them &#8220;all really established, good and well-dressed \u2014 and this guy comes in late \u2014 tall, gangly, thin guy with messy hair wearing a beat-up black t-shirt and torn black jeans and Keds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for PEOPLE&#8217;s <\/strong><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/people-news-daily-newsletter-sign-up-8692701\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:free daily newsletter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;free daily newsletter&quot;}\" class=\"link \"><strong>free daily newsletter<\/strong><\/a><strong> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure class=\"relative mb-4\">\n<div class=\"relative\"><button aria-label=\"View larger image\" class=\"group absolute bottom-0 size-full\" data-ylk=\"elm:expand;itc:1;sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;\"><span class=\"absolute bottom-3 right-3 rounded-full bg-white p-3 opacity-100 shadow-elevation-3 transition-opacity duration-300 group-hover:block group-hover:opacity-100 md:p-[17px] lg:bottom-6 lg:right-6 lg:bg-white\/90 lg:p-5 lg:opacity-0 lg:shadow-none\"><svg viewbox=\"0 0 22 22\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"size-4 lg:size-6\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\"><path d=\"M12.372.92c0-.506.41-.916.915-.916L21 0l-.004 7.712a.917.917 0 0 1-1.832 0V3.183l-6.827 6.828-1.349-1.348 6.828-6.828h-4.529a.915.915 0 0 1-.915-.915M1.835 17.816l6.828-6.828 1.349 1.349-6.829 6.827h4.529a.915.915 0 0 1 0 1.831L0 21l.004-7.713a.916.916 0 0 1 1.831 0z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><dialog aria-label=\"Modal Dialog\" aria-modal=\"true\" class=\"fixed bottom-0 left-0 right-0 top-0 z-4 size-full max-h-none max-w-none bg-white hidden\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"relative text-sm mt-1 pr-2.5\">\n<p><i>Doing Time on Maple Drive David Byron, Jayne Brook, Bibi Besch, Lori Loughlin, William McNamara, James Sikking, Jim Carrey<br \/>Credit: Century Fox Film Corp.\/courtesy Everett Collection<\/i><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;He came in and right away I was depressed,&#8221; he added. &#8220;I&#8217;m like, god. I thought we&#8217;re gonna have a great cast except for this one loser. I didn&#8217;t know he was.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The feeling only deepened during the table read, with McNamara sharing that he initially felt Carrey was &#8220;not good.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Off-camera, McNamara even tried to keep his distance during rehearsals, including during a cast bonding tennis session.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Carrey, however, had other plans\u2014approaching McNamara for advice and eager to learn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/people-puzzler-8620185\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!&quot;}\" class=\"link \"><strong>The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">After Carrey &#8220;globbed on&#8221; to him, the two went to lunch, and McNamara realized he had completely misjudged his co-star.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I&#8217;m sitting there, and he&#8217;s sitting there, and people are looking over the table. And I&#8217;m like, &#8216;Oh, wow.&#8217; And people are starting to get up, and I see them like going over and getting like paper and pencils from the waitress,&#8221; McNamara explained. &#8220;And I say to Jim, &#8216;These people &#8230; they&#8217;re gonna get my autograph, they&#8217;re gonna line up and get my autograph.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He continued: &#8220;But I see the people getting ready and they start lining up like an autograph convention [and] they&#8217;re like &#8216;Jim, Jim&#8217; and I&#8217;m like &#8216;Jim?&#8217; &#8220;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">That&#8217;s when McNamara realized the crowd wasn\u2019t there for him\u2014they were there for Carrey, who had already gained recognition from <em>In Living Color.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cSo at this point I&#8217;m like, &#8216;Okay, this guy is somebody famous\u2026 there was 20 people that wanted his, not one person knew who I was,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">From that moment on, McNamara\u2019s perspective shifted, adding that he and Carrey then &#8220;started hanging out,&#8221; and he realized he was &#8220;going to be a superstar&#8221; when the comedian made a speech during the first day on set, telling the cast and crew, &#8220;Listen: I&#8217;m not a great dramatic actor, and I know that. And I&#8217;m gonna try really, really hard to be good. I wanna be good &#8230; If you think I&#8217;m doing a lousy job, or anything I do wrong and you have advice, just come right up to me and tell me, &#8216;Jim, you&#8217;re not good, do something different.&#8217; &#8220;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I was just like, wow this guy is crazy but in those 20 days he became a phenomenal actor,&#8221; McNamara added of Carrey who did indeed go on to become a superstar, with credits such as <em>Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask <\/em>and <em>The Truman Show<\/em>\u2014the latter of which earned him a Golden Globe Award, which he also won for 1999 biopic <em>Man on the Moon<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Read the original article on <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/why-actor-william-mcnamara-thought-jim-carrey-was-a-total-loser-on-set-of-1992-tv-movie-11951750\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:People;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;People&quot;}\" class=\"link \">People<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEED TO KNOW Actor William McNamara is looking back on one of his earliest Hollywood memories \u2014 in which he underestimated a then unknown co-star In a new podcast interview, McNamara recounted his time filming the 1992 TV movie Doing Time on Maple Drive The cast included a then-unknown actor named Jim Carrey, who McNamara [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2376649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[462583,305710,462582],"class_list":["post-2376648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-hollywood-memories","tag-jim-carrey","tag-william-mcnamara"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/William-McNamara-Thought-Jim-Carrey-Was-a-Loser-On-Set.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2376648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2376650,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376648\/revisions\/2376650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2376649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2376648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2376648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2376648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}