Jim Carrey Hangs Out With Krishna

gHari · November 19, 2004

JIM CARREY TELLS '60 MINUTES': MORE GOD, LESS PROZAC

Thu Nov 18 2004 16:29:15 ET

Jim Carrey says the anti-depressant Prozac that he took may have helped him at one time, but he's better off without it now. In fact, says the actor, a no-drugs-or-alcohol policy and a spiritual life are the things that make him feel good. Carrey speaks frankly in a rare one-on-one interview with Steve Kroft to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Nov. 21 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

"I was on Prozac for a long time," he tells Kroft. "It may have helped me out of a jam for a little bit, but people stay on it forever." Then he describes being on the medication as not taking away the illness's peaks and valleys, only softening them. "There are peaks, there are valleys, but they're all kind of carved and smoothed out...It feels like a low level of despair you live in where you're not getting any answers but you're living okay and you can smile at the office," he says. "You know, I had to get off at a certain point because I realized that ...everything is okay."

Carrey takes nothing now. "I rarely drink coffee. I am very serious about no alcohol, no drugs," he says, "Life is too beautiful."

During the interview at his home, he invited 60 MINUTES cameras to one of his most beautiful and private spots, his "center of the universe," where he goes to escape the world and where he tells Kroft his feelings about God. "This is where I hang out with Buddha, Krishna...all those guys," says Carrey about a lean-to adorned with candles and a bed built high on his hillside property in Brentwood, Calif.

"I'm a Buddhist, I'm a Muslim, I'm a Christian. I'm whatever you want me to be...it all comes down to the same thing," he tells Kroft. Carrey says he believes they are all the same God and it is this conviction and spirituality that make him happy.