By Christina Radish
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Jim Carrey at the premiere of "The Number 23" held at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, Calif. on February 13, 2007. |
In the New Line Cinema film The Number 23, directed by Joel Schumacher, Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) allows his dark obsession with the haunting number to twist his once idyllic life into an inferno of psychological torture that could jeopardize not only his own life, but that of his loved ones as well. Spurred on by a mysterious novel that he doesn’t dare put down, Walter is forced to unlock the secrets of his past before he can continue his future with his wife, Agatha (Virginia Madsen), and teenage son, Robin (Jack & Bobby’s Logan Lerman).
Given to Walter by Agatha as a birthday gift, the book, about a brooding detective named Fingerling (also played by Carrey), depicts a chilling murder mystery that seems to echo Walter’s own history. As the world of the book starts to come alive, Walter becomes infected by Fingerling’s obsession with the hidden power of the number 23, as he sees the number everywhere in his own life and becomes convinced that he is destined to commit the same horrific crime. If he can unlock the power behind the number 23, Walter may still be able to change his future.
For the lead role in The Number 23, Schumacher turned to an actor he had worked with on Batman Forever in 1994 -- international superstar Jim Carrey. The filmmakers believed Carrey was the perfect choice to pull off the dual role, but what they didn’t know at the time was that Carrey also had his own personal connection to the number 23.
“A friend of mine in Canada handed the obsession down to me,” Carrey reveals to MediaBlvd Magazine. “He was seeing it everywhere. He had a book full of the 23 phenomenon and he handed it to me. I said he was crazy, and then I started seeing it everywhere. Then, when a friend of mine told me about a script called The Number 23, I read it and was compelled by it. I gave it to a friend of mine and, when I came back in the room, he had turned to the 23rd page and was circling every 23rd word. He was looking for a code. With a movie like this, that’s what I want to do with the audience.”
{quote_top}Having done some dramatic work, in films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Cable Guy, Carrey takes it one step further in the intense thriller. “I really have always thought of myself as somebody who lives in the middle of the wheel and is able to go to the extreme, in any direction. The best case scenario for me is to be able to be centered, and then go out and be zany and funny, or do something that really has some depth and is serious. There’s many different colors to paint with, and I would hate to get trapped in one thing. I feel like funny is an appendage. It is not my whole body.”
As Carrey began to explore the nature of his dual characters in the film, he developed a clear picture of the similarities and differences of Walter Sparrow and Fingerling. “I love Walter because he’s the family guy who wants to have a normal life. He’s like most of us, who want things to be stable. We’re in a constant state of denial that we live on plates of rock that are floating on molten magma and that nothing is stable in the universe. We just want to keep things from moving or changing too much. The other character was a bit different for me to play, so that was exciting for me. My girlfriend (Jenny McCarthy) liked Fingerling. It’s amazing what a tattoo does for a girl.”
Starting as a body painting and then later getting transformed into a decal that would just stick to his skin, that tattoo took awhile to apply, but Carrey says it was worth it because it definitely helped him get into the mind of that character. “We got on the computer, played around with Photoshop and did a mock up of it, and then I stood there while he painted it on me. It turned out really cool, so he came up with the process where he could actually apply it in little pieces that he could stick on.”
{quote_middle}Carrey says that he was able to relate to the idea that something can become so important to you that it threatens to consume you. “The only thing that has ever consumed me is love, and the feeling of ‘What is it? How do I get it?’ Those things have consumed my mind, from time to time. My spiritual journey has been a good thing. Some people would say I’m obsessed, but in a really good way. It’s just enjoyable. I don’t have crazy obsessions about things. I think obsessions happen because you’re trying to understand something or some urge, or because you’re trying to avoid something."
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Jim Carrey & Jenny McCarthy at the premiere of "The Number 23" held at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, Calif. on February 13, 2007. |
Since The Number 23 is such a departure from Carrey’s previous work, it would be understandable if he were concerned about the reaction audiences will have to the film. But, he just hopes that his fans will keep an open mind. “I want them to enjoy the work, absolutely, without question. But, I believe in the thing that Emerson says in his essay on self-reliance, about how what’s true for you is true for all men. I try to do things that I actually connect with, whether they’re comedy or drama. I consider what’s true for me, and I hope that it will connect with someone. I know that, if it’s truly for me, it will connect with someone and, in many cases, it will connect with a great many people. That’s all I really consider.”
{quote_bottom}Currently working on Tim Burton’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, Carrey will also be trying his hand at another Dr. Seuss character. “Ripley’s is going to be a really fun film. It’s just an incredible world to open up. He was very much the champion of the underdog and people who were a little bit different and freakish. He was about celebrating life and proving its specialness. I am also doing the cartoon version of Horton Hears a Who, which is going to be beautiful. I love, and have always loved, all Dr. Seuss. I was lucky enough to have been the Grinch, but Dr. Seuss’ widow, Audrey Geisel, liked what I did and asked me to do Horton.”
