You don't expect a movie of scope and ambition to pop up the sea of summer fluff. And if one does, you don't expect it to star Jim Carrey. Which makes it all the more interesting to hear how the guy who once pretended to wet his pants on The Arsenio Hall Show came to make this summer's smart movie, The Truman Show.
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Every time Jim Carrey gets out of his limousine and looks out at the crowd of people waiting to see him walk down the red carpet at the premiere of his new movie, he smiles that full-tooth Ace Ventura smile of his and thinks, "The illusion is complete."
As far as he's concerned, he's still that 10-year-old who sent a resume with a list of 80 impressions he could do to The Carol Burnett Show, the 15-year-old who got booed off the stage at Yuk Yuks in Toronto. Martin Scorsese never heard of Jim Carrey when he cast Robert De Niro as basement talk show host Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy, but Carrey will tell you that De Niro could have been playing him.
Carrey first made an impact on the public imagination when he became the bizarre white guy on TV's In Living Color. Then he took on the big screen as Ace Ventura. Then he became a full-fledged movie star with The Mask. Then he got $7 million for Dumb & Dumber, and $20 million for The Cable Guy, and another $20 million for Liar Liar. And now suddenly, Jim Carrey is starring in The Truman Show, a funny, moving, intelligent and highly original film by world-class director Peter Weir. In the film, Carrey plays Truman Burbank, the only person in a picture-perfect town who doesn't know that since birth he's been the unwitting star of a worldwide 24-hour TV show. The Truman Show is both satirical and poignant, funny and profound. And while it has moments of the familiar Jim Carrey, it also has moments that will make you wonder who Jim Carrey is--and who you are, too.
Carrey and I meet at a chilly, empty warehouse in downtown L.A. which he prefers, as an interview setting, to his Brentwood home, because he is trying to separate his public and private life. He smiles that friendly smile of his as he settles into the torn leatherette couch and says, "This is where I find out about myself. It's like therapy for me, this stuff."
LAWRENCE GROBEL: Do you still read self-help books?
JIM CARREY: Oh yeah. I like therapy. Honest to God, these interviews are enlightening for me, because you don't sit around to figure out what you're thinking all the time. I took 10 months off after The Truman Show when I felt I needed to live--I'd done three movies in a row--and it was the worst thing I ever did in my life. After four months I was dying--I'd had all the heavy thoughts I was going to have.
Q: You've done all kinds of therapy. What are the benefits of colonic therapy?
A: Sometimes you find old jewelry.
Q: What went on during your psychic phase?
A: I wouldn't call it a giant phase. I went to one psychic who told me that there were colors missing from my aura and I had to go and get ribbon from stores. So I went to find different colored ribbons to replace colors of my aura. Somewhere in the process I got hold of myself and said, My aura's going to be all right without the ribbons. Go to mass if you need to do something.
Q: How spiritual is your spiritual side?
A: Very. I pray every day. I talk to God all the time. All the time. I don't go to church, but I'm constantly looking. I wish more than anything in the world to just have one huge face come over the city and go, "It's all real, man."
Q: Let's talk about The Truman Show. What did you think when you first read it?
A: When I read the script I was so happy, because I had thought of this concept. It rings a bell with a lot of people: what if everybody is just an actor in my story? I even had a writer's meeting with a guy about possibly putting it together. And then two years later this script came by and I went, "Thank you, thank you." You don't come out of many movies these days and think, Hmmmm, that was interesting. This is a fascinating film with a lot of layers to it. It's not your regular movie. It just blew me away when I read it. I felt, at the very least they can't fault you for trying something different when you're doing this, because this is different.
Q: How did you and Peter Weir get along?
A: He came to my house a couple of months before we did it and he brought binders full of paintings, photographs, sketches and writings he had done on planes, thinking about the character. He completely inspired me. I went away from the first couple of meetings just reeling. Next thing I know I'm drawing with a bar of soap on my bathroom mirror. I filled the entire wall of mirror with faces--one would have a beard and glasses and a hat on, another would be a beautiful woman with an incredible dress, and I would just move my face into the mirror face. This is what Weir's excitement about the project spurred me into.
Q: Did you watch dailies with Weir?
A: Peter's fascinating in dailies. He's got a little boom box and a bunch of CDs he picked out during the day that he thinks might go with the dailies. He'll sit there and he's like a mixer, he'll play music.
Q: Did you feel anxiety over each scene, as you have in the past?
A: Sure. But I don't let it bother me too much. This one I had to learn to walk away and go, Well, Peter knows what he wants. If I can't trust Peter Weir, then who can I trust? We didn't have any problems that way- If I sat down and really looked at people's expectations, I would get paranoid and not be able to create anything. That's what the movie's about. Everybody's watching the guy who doesn't know he's being watched. It's like the only thing worth watching is this guy who doesn't know.
Q: Are you satisfied with the title of the film?
A: Yes. My daughter turned to me in dailies with Peter and said, "Dad, you just played Liar Liar, and now you're playing True Man."
Q: Robin Williams said doing comedy is like emotional hang gliding, and acting is like oil drilling.
A: What's scary about acting for a stand-up is that with stand-up, you assume that Bill Murray veneer, that nothing matters. No matter what I do, nothing fucking matters, so you can't hurt me. But when you go into a dramatic piece, you say to the audience, Something does matter to me. When you go, I'm me, you're either going to accept or reject me, this isn't a trick anymore, and somebody says, "I don't like you," it's more damaging and horrible.
Q: In the film, Truman says, "Maybe I'm being set up for something." Do you feel that way about your life?
A: Everybody who feels like their life is worth something and they have something to lose feels that: When's the ax gonna fall? I used to walk around the streets thinking, What separates me from that homeless guy? It's literally an accident.
Q: You worked with Francis Coppola in Peggy Sue Got Married. Can you compare Coppola with Peter Weir?
A: With Weir I had come into my own and was more comfortable. With Francis--it was like I wanted him to like me. I was really hungry and trying to be impressive, and I'm sure I came off as pretty obnoxious at times. Every once in a while he'd come out and say, "None of your shit's working." Just to completely mind-fuck me and throw me into a different place.
Q: You became friends with the star of that film, Nicolas Cage. You've said that Cage is "the Picasso of what we're trying to do." Meaning?
A: He was the first guy I saw in a really big-money situation still experimenting, still going, "I'm gonna take huge risks with this." A lot of people felt he ruined Peggy Sue Got Married by talking like Pokey through the whole movie. Francis's take on it was, when Brando came to do The Godfather and he did that voice, they said he was making fun of the movie and they wanted him out. It turned out to be a classic. You just don't know. It takes huge guts for a filmmaker like Francis Coppola to go, "I don't know." He believes in giving actors enough rope to swing to the next tree or hang themselves. And Nic was an incredibly brave artist. I sat back and said, "Here's a guy who's got his big chance, and that's what he's doing with it." When I got $7 million for Dumb & Dumber, and I started thinking, "Now do I get safe and do that $7 million performance?" I realized through examples like Nic's that you can't start asking whether it's worth $7 million, or you're dead.
Q: How safe was it to talk through your ass in Ace Ventura, Pet Detective?
A: That was out of rebellion. That was something I used to do around the set of In Living Color a lot. I would talk through my ass to people when I didn't like what was going on. I'd go [bends over] "Disagree, disagree."
Q: How did you take the reception of The Cable Guy?
A: Obviously you want everything you do to be magnificently welcomed. It was an interesting thing to watch, because the film was misperceived. The promotion was wrong--they wanted to get those people in on the first weekend, so they built it up as "Jim Carrey, Have Some Fun," but they brought them in to see the Devil. When it was over I thought, Well, they took a lot of shots at me, but they have to. It's, like, time to do it. And maybe this is good for the next thing I do. I think Liar Liar had a windfall from that, because people were relieved that I was nice again.
Q: What attracted you to Liar Liar?
A: The concept. How much do we lie to our kids? How much lying is OK? How much lying goes on in the world? People are saying the president should come out and say, "I did it. So what?" That sounds well and good, but we've gotten to a point in this country where the worst possible thing you can do is admit that you made a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes, but we're in this impossible place where we can't admit it.
Q: How did The Cable Guy do in the end?
A: They made some pocket change. I loved The Cable Guy. It made people uncomfortable. I don't want to be somebody's stuffed animal all the time. I want to be somebody's stuffed animal and at the same time I want them to be scared that I'm under the bed.
Q: You had that edge when you were on In Living Color.
A: Sure. A lot of times I went home thinking I was going to go to hell. [As an angel] "St. Peter, you want to introduce this next clip? This is where he called Arsenio a black bastard at the height of the L.A. riots."
Q: Speaking of Arsenio, describe when you went on his show and wet your pants.
A: That was the follow-up show. The first week was when I walked out with a bottle of wine and laid on the couch like I was drunk. I was screaming and slurring that I was on hiatus and what the hell did it matter? It was insane. I went way over the top and everyone thought it was real. People were calling, saying, "What's wrong with Jim? Is he OK? Do we need to get him some help?" [Laughs]
Q: How did Arsenio handle it?
A: He knew I was going to do something but didn't know what. He went with it and was very cool about it. And that was at the height of the riots, and I took a swing at him and said it was for Reginald Denny. Afterwards my manager went, "I don't know man, that was a rough one." I went, "It's theater. It's interesting."
Q: Then you returned and wet your pants?
A: On the follow-up show I had Arsenio say that I was really freaked out because there was a lot of bad reaction from the week before. So I walked out and stood frozen in the spotlight while they applauded. I had a little squeegee bottle in my pocket and made it look like I was peeing in my pants. It got laughs. There was a time there when I wanted to make people think I was insane.
Q: Like Andy Kaufman used to do?
A: Andy Kaufman was a completely inspired human being. He, at his own peril, decided to be the only comedian to never let the audience in on the joke. Comics look at that and go, OK, we've got to build a statue to this guy because he's saying everything that's lurking around in there.
Q: You're going to play Andy Kaufman in a movie about his life. What made you feel you could do this role?
A: On first appearances, I don't look that much like Andy, but I know where his essence comes from, and I'm a huge admirer. So when [director] Milos [Forman] asked people to make a videotape, I looked at it as an opportunity to prove I could do it, not only to Milos, but to myself. And after it was done, I felt satisfied.
Q: How aggressive is stand-up?
A: It's brutal. It's the morgue. When something happens in the world, it's taken to the comedy club and they do an autopsy. They figure out who's wrong, who's right, who's to be judged, who's to be made fun of. If there's not a joke about the space shuttle blowing up three hours after it happens, then you're not in a comedy club.
Q: Rodney Dangerfield said he brought you down from Canada to Caesars in Vegas, to the Universal Amphitheater, and to Atlantic City. Does he deserve credit for discovering you?
A: Yeah, sure. As far as my first benefactor, somebody who even during the time when I was trying to find myself was supporting me, Rodney was there. He recognized what I was going through. He went, "OK, so you're trying to find some stuff now, right? Go man." Most of the people at the time were saying, "You're blowing this."
Q: Would you agree with Robin Williams that fame leads to drugs?
A: That's when you're going all the time and you need "planned vacations." That's what that becomes. People get into the trap of, I have to feel happy now.
Q: Do you have moments when you have to feel happy?
A: I've had these Wave of Pain parties with friends, where we just sit there and go, "OK, I'm bummed out, are you bummed out? Yeah? Fucking super-bummed. Let's sit here and just feel the waves of pain." You have to feel stuff. Otherwise you wake up and you're 70 and you go, I never got to the next level.
Q: How much of an aphrodisiac is fame?
A: Fame is the by-product. It's not an end in itself. It's the thing you learn to put up with.
Q: And what about money? You've said that the pressure doesn't come from making $20 million for a picture, it comes from what people think of the $20 million. What do people think of it?
A: They think you're a lot richer than you are. I've bought a lot of traffic lights in this city. [Laughs]
Q: Besides paying taxes, what do you do with it?
A: I have a charity portfolio. I work a lot with terminally ill children. I have my family, friends I help.
Q: You said that you wouldn't be in this business if you weren't desperate, because it's too much of a hassle.
A: I don't want to get off on too much of a tangent about the drawbacks of show business, because everybody has their crap. It's just that there's a terrible fear of being publicly humiliated. Jimmy Stewart used to say, "If they found out who I really was..." And he's not someone you can picture having a secret life. But you know what? We all do. Everybody does. And if you're in this place of scrutiny, it's only a matter of time before they find out something that can embarrass you.
Q: So, if the president gets a blow job, is he cheating on his wife?
A: Yes, absolutely. Everybody knows he's cheating. So I don't get invited to the White House. The problem these days is that people are starting to think very puritanically, that our leaders have to be perfect. Nobody is perfect, we all have a character flaw.
Q: What's yours?
A: That I don't know what my character flaw is. The fact is, when John Barrymore was alive and running around with Errol Flynn, much worse shit was going on in Hollywood than ever happens these days. I mean, I go to parties, I'm in the inner sanctum of Hollywood, and basically people get together and have dinner and laugh, but nobody gets sodomized and thrown in the pool. It just doesn't happen. But there's such a media glut now, so many cable channels. There's a monster that needs to be fed.
Q: What's your take on entertainment journalism?
A: It's a necessary thing if we're to run our business properly. It's a good thing for business, to a certain extent. Except that now it's like the lawyers, there's too fucking many journalists. Sorry, man.
Q: How often do reporters with tape recorders misquote you?
A: All the time. It's not only that they misquote me, it's that they make the story plausible by putting in things that you actually said in other interviews. I'll sit with you for a legitimate interview and talk about what I want to talk about and half of the things that I say to you now will go into a Star article to make the things that are made up look truthful.
Q: You've complained that your whole life is spent fighting for space. How do you deal with that?
A: I have a nice house. The freedom to move around is not there, so at least make the cage really nice. And I took up riding motorcycles recently. I have a helmet on and I'm nobody.
Q: When you take it off are you instantly recognized?
A: Yeah. Eighty percent of the time I'm cool with people. I love that they love me, and that their kids love me. The other 20 percent, when I'm tired or wrung-out or feel self-loathing that day, I don't want you to come up and say you love me. I don't like myself, so why do you love me? That's when it becomes hard. I had a fender-bender accident on Sunset, when my daughter was with me. Not a big deal. I got out and dealt with the police, but somebody knowing he could get money for information called on his cell phone and the next thing you know, as I was leaving, a van was flying up beside me, cutting me off, with a guy hanging out the window with a long lens, trying to get a picture of me and my daughter with the smashed-up front of the car. I don't care what you say or how cool you try to be, it elicits a fight-or-flight response.
Q: We'll avoid pressing you for details of your two marriages, but what have you learned about marriage in general?
A: It's a good thing. Marriage is the only institution in life that forces you to realize who you are and what your flaws are. It's something that I want to master at some point, but I have not been good at it. I will want to be with someone. If you end up on your deathbed and you weren't able to have someone in your life to look at and say, "Guess what, you're the only one, and that's it, I'm here for you," then there's really something empty and horrible in that. But it's certainly hard in the climate that I live in to keep a settled thing going on.
Q: Are you by yourself now?
A: I always wanted to get to a place where I didn't have to fake it. Where I was living honestly enough that I wouldn't have to put on or be something. I'm getting better and better at living life and going, This is who I am right now and I'm OK. Yeah I'm alone, I'm not seeing anybody. I go out to a party and people go, "Hey, you're Jim Carrey, man, how come you don't have a supermodel?" Well, because I can't My be with anybody right now. I'm not ready for that. Because my heart's still in that place.
Q: How painful was it when you realized your marriage [to Lauren Holly] wasn't working?
A: Honestly, it gets harder every time. You don't stop loving people. You just can't be there. It's weird.
Q: Does that begin to scare you?
A: No. What messes with me is, whoever I meet they're gonna have things going on and I'm going to find out and will have to look through it. I still don't know what the hell it's all about.
Q: Did your parents really love each other?
A: Totally. It's the one thing they gave me that I so far can't give to my daughter. I've discussed that with her. I said, "I might never be able to teach you how to have a good relationship. You might have to learn that on your own."
Q: Did you resent that your father had trouble expressing his feelings until the end?
A: He was a nice man, sweet person, but he also had resentments caused by not being honest about his feelings. That's what happens when you don't say: You know what, you're hurting me now, fuck you! If you don't do that and you don't defend yourself, then you will resent yourself. I find that a form of cowardice. But my father's generation didn't go to therapists and they didn't have self-help sections to wallow in. The really virtuous thing was he always tried to make people feel happy. But you've also got to make yourself happy.
Q: What's the most romantic thing you've ever done?
A: I can't talk about it.
Q: That good, huh?
A: Yeah, really good.
Q: Why was losing your virginity before 16 so important to you?
A: I don't know. It was an all-encompassing need. I said, I cannot get to the age of 16 without doing this. I have to. It was all I thought about.
Q: The girl was 25--did the event match the anticipation?
A: It was great. I remember Styx's The Grand Illusion was playing. How interesting: the grand illusion.
Q: Let's talk about people whose work you like. Wasn't Dick Van Dyke someone you admired?
A: I loved "The Dick Van Dyke Show," used to watch it religiously. He was one of my idols. He was animated and a down, but at the same time he could make you feel, too.
Q: Whose films do you prefer: Woody Allen or Mel Brooks?
A: Woody.
Q: Albert Brooks or Steve Martin?
A: That's tough. The Jerk really drove me nuts, but Albert Brooks is one of those guys who everybody, including Steve Martin, would sit back and go, "Jesus Christ, this guy's from another planet."
Q: Chevy Chase or Eddie Murphy?
A: Eddie, I guess.
Q: Billy Crystal or Bill Murray?
A: Bill because he has more of an edge and is dangerous, but I like Billy.
Q: Bob Hope or Cary Grant?
A: Cary Grant.
Q: The Three Stooges or the Marx Brothers?
A: Marx Brothers.
Q: Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy?
A: Hmmm, I don't have an opinion. I appreciate them, but I don't watch them.
Q: Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis or Monty Python?
A: Well, Monty Python, in the way that they came out with something completely different, to coin a phrase. But Martin and Lewis made me very happy.
Q: Time described you as a goyish Jerry Lewis with less ego and more self-esteem.
A: Oh God. I don't know Jerry Lewis, but it was a kind of Renaissance time when he was doing his thing. Maybe he does have a big ego, but he's also done some of the absolute best, most brilliant downing ever done on film. I don't mind if somebody has an ego when he's giving you the goods. He made me laugh--gut-laugh.
Q: Who else makes you gut-laugh?
A: Sometimes it's the most outlandish, juvenile thing that will make me laugh. "South Park" makes me laugh because it's ridiculous.
Q: You got to play a Batman villain--who's your favorite Batman: Keaton, Kilmer or Clooney?
A: I think Keaton was great. He overcame huge odds to do that well.
Q: How serious was the gallbladder operation you had during Dumb & Dumber?
A: I'm still pissing blood, man.
Q: Are you?
A: No. Just wanted to put that out there. Carrey's pissing blood. [Laughs]
Q: Did it scare you?
A: No, it wasn't a major deal. The press had me delusional and talking about Vietnam. Whereas, I got out of the car, walked in, got my gall bladder taken out and came home.
Q: What do you watch on TV?
A: I watch A&E's Biography, American Justice, Public Enemies, MTV, E!, Discovery. I just watched a show about black bear attacks. I went to Alaska during this last break with a friend. We flew into the wilderness where all the grizzly bears are, and I have a videotape of me 30 feet away from a grizzly bear that was circling me. I was amazingly calm, vocalizing, "Hey bear, hey bear," letting him know that we knew he was there. I thought, What a joke it would be to be mauled to death by this bear when I'm Ace Ventura. What a great way to go out.
Q: If you could dine with any group of people who have been featured on A&E's Biography, who would you choose?
A: Harry Houdini. Benjamin Franklin. Gandhi, I suppose. Jesus.
Q: What would you ask Jesus?
A: That whole turn-the-other-cheek thing, what's that about? That's the difficult thing in life. Forgiveness is the ultimate. I've really focused on that lately. And the saying "Judge not lest you be judged" has hit home with me, because the harder I am on every one else, the more brutal my own standards become.
Q: You once said your worst nightmare would be to end up in a sitcom called Jim's Place, where you're a cop from outer space working with a cop in Chicago. Think John Lithgow views 3rd Rock from the Sun as a nightmare?
A: [Laughs] No. At certain points in an artist's career you need certain things--that show was a perfect thing for John Lithgow to get out of his serious place and have some fun. There probably will come a time when I won't be viable in films anymore and I'll go into a TV show, because I'll want to do something. Or else I won't. Maybe I'll do something completely different with my life.
Q: If a UFO landed, would you go?
A: Yeah, I'd have to. But I'd want that return ticket stamped.
Q: If you could live inside a painting, which would you choose?
A: Marc Chagall, the one of the lovers flying. That's what I would choose for myself. I'd probably end up in a Francis Bacon, tearing my eye out.
Q: What's more important, your life or your work?
A: I don't know how much is my life and how much is my work and where the two are separated. This may sound chauvinistic and unpopular, but I think that men identify themselves with their work. The hunting, killing, bringing-home-the-bacon thing goes back a long way. Past people burning bras.
Q: If you could do a dramatic role in the adaptation of a classic novel, what novel would you choose?
A: Something heavy. Dostoyevsky. Crime and Punishment. I'd make a good Raskolnikov. The Brothers Karamazov. You know what it would be? Howard Roark. The Fountainhead. Ayn Rand. That book messed me up bad.
Q: Besides Andy Kaufman, is there any other contemporary figure you would like to play?
A: I'd like to do something about Chet Baker. He was the James Dean of jazz. A guy like that, you probably wouldn't want to be around him in a million years, but there's something beautiful inside him.
Q: Any director you'd like to work with?
A: I'd love to do something with Scorsese. Hopefully I won't have to bash somebody's brains in.
Q: Do you ever worry that you have too many ideas?
A: No. I lose too many ideas. I'm not as good at writing them down as I am of thinking them up.
Q: What's your favorite music?
A: I have a wide range of taste. I like Verve. Love Tom Petty. A lot of great women artists out there. Sarah McLachlan. I like baroque classical music--it's really good for your brain and all your body systems. They've done studies with plants in different rooms: one without music, one with rock and roll, one with baroque classical. The rock and roll music ones withered and died a horrible death, which is what you want from rock and roll music. The ones without music grew OK. The ones with baroque classical grew three times as big as anything and towards the speakers.
Q: Based on your opinion that nobody is interesting until they've had the shit kicked out of them, who's the most interesting person you know?
A: Martyrs are the people I'm most drawn to, because they're the ones who claim to have the answers and wind up with head wounds.
Q: How much shit do you still have in you that has yet to surface?
A: Tons of stuff. I hope I'm only scratching the surface, because life is long.
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Lawrence Grobel interviewed Richard Gere for the November '97 issue of Movieline.