The Capra Redemption Part Two

By: Paul Zimmerman
Date: Wednesday, December 26, 2001

In the new Frank Darabont film THE MAJESTIC, Jim Carrey stars as blacklisted screenwriter Peter Appleton, a man who finds a new life for himself in Small Town, U.S.A. An ode to Frank Capra, the film hearkens back to a simpler time of movie houses and idyllic Americana. Seen as comedian Carrey's latest bid at serious dramaand perhaps an OscarTHE MAJESTIC is a sentimental journey that either leaves viewers cheering or sneering. Today, in the second part of CINESCAPE's Carrey profile, the actor discusses his latest film some more, as well as what other projects he has in the pipeline.

The suddenly single star, who's had messy breakups in years' past with actress/co-star/lovers like Lauren Holly and Renée Zellweger, says, "I went to Alaska for vacation and everybody I met there was risking their lives everyday going up into the mountains and stuff and they said to me, 'Yeah, we risk our lives everyday, but you risk public humiliation. And that's something that we can't afford.' So that's the tough part of all of this, that you risk humiliating yourself by exposing yourself."

And if

Carrey didn't take those risks? "Oh, that's the worst thing," he says, sitting up straight. "Sure. Not playing the game." So does this acting departure in The Majestic make him all the more nervous or serene? "There's concern that it does well," Carrey concedes. "Obviously I'd love it if it did well. But I'm also doing the next thing. You keep busy because if you sat around thinking what this was going to do you'd go crazy." Chuckling, Carrey then says, "I like to be busy and on to the next recipe. Like the Galloping Gourmet."

While the discussion with Carrey is supposed to be about how he got around the part of a man conflicted between being the false hero of a small town and testifying before a Senate subcommittee on Communist activities, the actor's thoughts keep returning to life philosophies. Like what he wants in the future. Carrey continues, "I think [I'd like] a rounded life. You know, family, mostly that probably undefined part of my life. My daughter [Jane, from an early marriage with Melissa Womer] is now 14. She's pretty cool... So far she even wants to hang with me sometimes."

Obviously comfortable

with drama, should Carrey's fans fear he's abandoning comedy in general? At the notion of a thespian line of demarcation Carrey just shrugs. "I just want to tell stories," he says emphatically. "I'm not a comedic person or a dramatic person. I'm everything. So for me to go, 'I just do comedy,' to me is a waste of effort to what I am. Sometimes they both go together, sometimes they mold together, sometimes they're one or the other. I'm into psychology. My comedy came from that. It's not heady stuff or anything but the idea that I have sat in my bed or my room my whole life and gone, 'What do people need?' and that's really where it came from. How can I get on a stage, or in front of a camera, and do something [that] fulfills a need. In me as well. But hopefully it's all the different bases at once and I need to tell serious stories."

In the meantime, don't expect to see Carrey in any sequels like The Mask 2. "I don't think so," Carrey says about the sequel Hollywood has been drooling over since the success of the 1994 film. "I really have this thing. I won't say I'll never do it because I'm sure there will be a character somewhere along the line that I'll want to do again, but if the world's end came tomorrow I don't want to spend it doing something I did two, three years ago or more."

What Carrey

will be doing is Dog Years, a supernatural romantic comedy with Nicole Kidman that starts shooting in a few months, and possibly the long planned Howard Hughes biography. "It's in the very early stages now," Carrey says of HH. "I'm fascinated about what takes a person down that road. I need to find out who he is and why he became that. That's what fascinates me about it. I'm afraid of it, those types of things take you to very dark places. There's a certain part of me that is like him and I'm fascinated."

And speaking of dark places, Carrey explains that he ultimately turned down Joel Schumacher's dark thriller Phone Booth because of the state of mind it would put him in. Carrey explains, "When I started thinking about doing that film I started having bad dreams about people coming to my house with guns. Fears start happening so when I get onto the set I'll have ammo, I'll know what that experience is like. I look at people like Chris Walken, people like that who go to very dark places a lot and I think, 'My God, what are they doing to their lives?' It's so tough."

Getting philosophical once more, Carrey says of life itself, "It's dreams. I think the whole thing is a dream by the way. So it's a very strange thing to be creating dreams in a dream state. I think that's what life is."