Jim Carrey wrote himself a $10 million cheque before he was famous for a very specific reason

Jim Carrey once wrote himself a cheque for $10 million which he couldn't afford to cash.

You might quite reasonably be wondering how that's possible given Carrey's net worth is estimated as being around $180 million, surely a paltry $10 million wouldn't be too much of a problem for him.

Except of course this cheque was not written recently, but back before Carrey found the international acclaim, leading in turn to fame and fortune, for his zany, outlandish comic performances. Whether it's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Mask, or A Series of Unfortunate Events, Carrey's particular style is unmistakable.

But it wasn't always so, and back in the early 90s Carrey was an actor trying to make it big, and in a 2015 appearance on the UK talk show The Graham Norton Show, he revealed a personal ritual he had carried out to help him find fame and fortune.

This was, he revealed, writing himself a cheque for $10 million, and then keeping it in his wallet as a way to manifest that level of success for himself.

Carrey would go on to become hugely successful (Francois Durand/Getty Images)

“I made a check to myself for $10 million for acting services rendered, paid to the order of Jim Carrey, post-dated Thanksgiving 1995, [and] stuck it in my wallet,” he told Norton.

Of course, this is one of those stories where we already know the end, with Carrey saying: “And six months before that due date came due, I was making $10 million for a movie.”

That $10 million was for Carrey's role in Dumb and Dumber, which he co-starred in with Jeff Daniels, and ironically is a movie where a major plot point is the hapless protagonists happening upon a huge amount of money.

It's not the only thing that Carrey did to help to manifest his success as well, a practice which has become hugely popular on social media.

Speaking to Barbara Walters in 1995, he recalled a way he used to try and make himself feel as though he was already successful. There's something to be said that if you act like something is going to happen, your attitude may make it more likely to actually become reality.

Carrey said he would manifest success for himself in the future (Gilbert Flores/Billboard via Getty Images)

“I used to go up to Mulholland Drive every night, sit on the side of the road, look out at the lights and go, ‘I’m a popular actor. Every director wants to work with me'," he told Walters.

He added: “It was a way of dealing with being completely out of work. I would stay up there until I actually believed that I had all these things.”

Carrey revealed that he maintained the ritual where he would go up to Mulholland Drive in Hollywood, which is known for being the home of many Hollywood A-listers over the years, during his early years where he was performing regularly at comedy clubs.

“I’m a huge visualizer, and a manifestor,” Carrey told Graham Norton.

And in his case at least, the manifestations did indeed come true, with Carrey becoming a Hollywood A-lister and commanding huge salaries for his movies measuring in the tens of millions of dollars.