Interview with the Cast of The Number 23

Time for another interview! This time it’s with Joel Schumacher, Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen and Danny Huston who tell us about their new movie, "The Number 23.” The psychological thriller stars Jim Carrey as a man whose life unravels after he comes into contact with an obscure book titled The Number 23. As he reads the book, he becomes increasingly convinced that it is based on his own life. His obsession with the number 23 starts to consume him, and he begins to realize the book forecasts far graver consequences for his life than he could have ever imagined. Directed by Joel Schumacher ("Phone Booth”) based on a screenplay by first-time screenwriter Fernley Phillips, the film co-stars Virginia Madsen ("Sideways”), Danny Huston ("The Constant Gardner,” "The Aviator”), Logan Lerman and Rhona Mitra.

Spiraling into a dark obsession with the number 23, Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) twists his once idyllic life into an inferno of psychological torture that could possibly lead to his death as well as the deaths of his loved ones. Spurred on by a mysterious novel, The Number 23, 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 (Logan Lerman). The novel, given to Walter by Agatha as a birthday gift, depicts a chilling murder mystery that seems to mirror Walter’s life in dark and uncontrollable ways. The life of the book’s main character, a brooding detective named Fingerling (also played by Carrey), is filled with moments that echo Walter’s own history. As the world of the book starts to come alive, Walter becomes infected by the most frightening and evocative part of it: Fingerling’s obsession with the hidden power of the number 23. If he can unlock the power behind the number 23, he may be able to change his future.

British screenwriter Fernley Phillips was first turned on to the number 23 enigma by a friend. And much like Walter Sparrow, the lead character in "The Number 23,” Phillips was quickly drawn in to the mystery of the number and its meaning. Phillips devoured the vast literature and subculture surrounding the number and found himself inspired to use the enigma as the chilling backbone for a unique film. "I began to open up to the numerical phenomena, as well as memory repression, hypnosis and the power of suggestion. I decided to incorporate all these subjects into a story,” recalls Phillips.

Producers Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson, partners in Contrafilm, were impressed with Phillips’ script and brought it to New Line Cinema. "This being Fernley’s first script, it was immediately apparent to us that his was an original voice that treads new territory, a unique vision,” says Beau Flynn. "His originality, spirit and vigor permeated the script and never allowed this project to languish during its journey to production.”

Confident they had a unique and compelling script to work with, producing partners Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson turned their attention to finding the right director for the project. Their search began and ended with one name: Joel Schumacher. The versatile filmmaker, who has guided such diverse fare as "The Phantom of the Opera,” "Falling Down,” and "8MM,” had previously worked with the producers on the critically-acclaimed military drama, "Tigerland.” "Joel Schumacher was our only choice for this material,” says Flynn. "Long before I worked with him on "Tigerland,” I had admired his mix of stylish vision, flair for the darker side and unparalleled rapport with actors.”

The producers’ instincts proved correct as Schumacher instantly took to the material. "I loved the script immediately and thought it was totally original and very unique,” says Schumacher. "It intrigued me because I’m always looking for something that everybody isn’t making and this was so original and very challenging.” But it wasn’t just the unique spin on numerology that intrigued Schumacher. What he saw in Phillips’ script was a rare piece of material that could work on multiple levels. "Fernley didn’t start the 23 phenomenon, he just wove it into this very interesting thriller which I think is about much more than just a number,” says Schumacher. "It’s about how obsession can become very destructive. And I think most of us know that in our own life. I think everybody has obsessions.”

For the lead role in "The Number 23,” Schumacher and the producers turned to an actor he had worked with on "Batman Forever” in 1994 (1+9+9+4 = 23) – international superstar Jim Carrey. Carrey’s range made him seem like the perfect choice to play the off-center dual roles of Walter Sparrow and Detective Fingerling, but they could only hope that he would be interested in taking on a role so different from his comedy roots. "Jim has proven himself to be a master of acting among many genres,” says producer Beau Flynn. "This thriller seemed to be a natural progression in his career, as these roles have a bizarre comic edge within an original look at life that is perfectly Jim.”

It turned out that the uniqueness of the project was exactly what Carrey was looking for and he was also excited to have the opportunity to once again work with Joel Schumacher. What the filmmakers didn’t know at the time was that Carrey also had his own personal connection to the number 23. (More on this later in the Q&A) Pulling off this portrayal obviously would be a tremendous challenge for any actor, but Carrey says he approached it as an equally big opportunity. "I live in a very crowded room in my head,” says Carrey. "There’s a lot of people in there, so it’s just a matter of tapping into that and putting yourself in that position. There’s so much freedom in losing yourself in a character. It’s less hard work than it is just a wonderful escape for yourself.”

Helping Carrey lose himself in his character was an outstanding supporting cast led by Virginia Madsen, as Oscar nominee for her work in "Sideways.” Madsen took on the challenging dual role of Walter’s wife Agatha and Fabrizia, detective Fingerling’s tempting femme fatale. "Agatha, the woman Walter loves in real life, becomes in his mind Fabrizia, this very dark, sexual creature from one of the chapters of the book,” says Madsen. "I got to explore a side of myself that I didn’t like very much. She’s full of rage, and she expresses her rage through her sexuality and her control of men. I was a bit afraid to be Fabrizia, but I went in to it headlong, and it was very exciting.” Rounding out the supporting cast, most of whom are playing dual roles, is Danny Huston ("21 Grams”) as Professor Isaac French and his literary alter ego, Dr. Miles Phoenix.

Joel Schumacher, Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, and Danny Huston are fabulous people and we really appreciated their time. Here’s what they had to tell us about their recent collaboration at the Los Angeles Press Day for "The Number 23”:

Virginia Madsen: (referring to the microphone in front of Jim Carrey) Why does Jim have the biggest one?

Jim Carrey: That’s a question they’ve been asking for years.

Q: Before you started this movie you knew about this phenomenon because you named your company JC23, are you thinking of changing that now?

A: No, never.

Q: What did you know about it then that made you want to name your company JC23?

Jim Carrey: Well you see it started out for me, a friend of mine in Canada kind of handed it down to me. He was seeing it everywhere, adding up license plates, doing all these things. He had a book full of 23 phenomena and he handed it to me, and I said he was crazy and then I started seeing it everywhere. And then one day, a few years later after it had entered my life in a big way and I was driving my friends crazy, somebody handed me a book on the 23rd Psalm, the valley of the shadow of death, living without fear basically, knowing you’re taken care of, so I thought that was a great progression from Pit Bull productions, which is kind of like grabbing hold of life and just not letting it go, to not sweating it.

Joel Schumacher: And ripping other people’s throats out.

Jim Carrey: Exactly. So I named the company that, and then I explained it to a friend and he said, ‘Well, I just read a script called ‘The Number 23’ and I said, ‘I have to see this.’ And I read the script, I was compelled by it, and I was freaked out actually because the first page of the script was actually originally me trying to capture a pit bull. So the Pit Bull Productions to JC23 was not lost there and it went on like that. Then he read it and I came back into the room, a friend of mine I gave it to, and he had turned to the 23rd page and was circling every 23rd word because he was looking for a code. And that’s what I want to do with the audience with a movie like this. That’s the fun of it.

Q: Has anyone else ever heard of this phenomenon?

Virginia Madsen: Yes, because I think all that stuff is really fun -- the shows on the Discovery Channel about ghosts and the yeti and UFOs, which I totally believe in. So I’d heard about it but I didn’t know how vast it was until really the first day of production. I’d sort of been on line, and I came in and there were these beautiful, beautiful roses from Jim, these enormous [roses] with this romantic note, to my beautiful wife.

Jim Carrey: I just didn’t want any trouble. (Laughs)

Virginia Madsen: And you know I was so gullible. I was like, ‘Oh, I love him now.’ That’s all it takes. But then on the table there was this book about this thick with all the fun facts about the number 23, just in case you’re a doubter. So I was like, ‘Oh my God.’

Jim Carrey: And then it began, and her son started picking out things. Her son was sitting there all day long trying to figure out the phenomenon on the set. And he pointed out that our names together were 23 letters (referring to him and Virginia) and our names together (referring to him and Schumacher) are 23 letters.

Virginia Madsen: And it’s his 23rd film (referring to Schumacher).

Schumacher: It’s my 23rd film.

Q: Did weird things happen on the set?

Joel Schumacher: Well, I hired Danny and Virginia. I asked them to participate in the movie and then the first day of shooting I found out they had been married once.

Virginia Madsen: 23 years ago!

Joel Schumacher: Right. And I asked them if they would have a problem doing a sex scene together?

Jim Carrey: We’re trying to keep them apart right now.

Joel Schumacher: I thought that was kind of, as Jim would say, ‘whoooo.’ We had weird stuff happening every day.

Jim Carrey: By the way, watch the Super Bowl. Keep your eye on Devin Hester.

Q: So Jim, playing an animal catcher, do you feel you’ve come full circle from Ace Ventura?

Jim Carrey: Well, again, this is the way my life and the universe works, basically it’s very mysterious. Movies find me, and I kind of just allow them to find me, and when it becomes a real good fit, I do them. And in this case it was the 23 phenomenon, and also the fact that he was a dog catcher was I think a really nice little wink toward my other work, so it was just all inclusive.

Q: You were very intense in this movie, is this going to start another direction in the way your career is going? I think this movie proves you’re the real McCoy when it comes to doing serious roles

Jim Carrey: Thanks very much, I appreciate that. Well, you know, 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, to the outside of the wheel in any direction, so that’s kind of my… The best case scenario for me is to be able to be centered and then go out and you can be zany and funny or you can do something that really has some depth to it and serious. So there’s many different colors to paint with, and I would hate to get trapped in one little thing. I always feel like funny is an appendage, but it is not my whole body.

Virginia Madsen: Well, I definitely… Agatha, but I mean, all of us have a dark side and all of us have an even darker side to our sexuality, and it was to tap into that. Everything that I play as an actress is a different aspect of me sort of being able to unlock that little door and show that. This movie was great because I just got to show a lot of different sides.

Danny Huston: What was interesting was to play a character that in a sense is an extension of Jim’s character’s paranoia so you are in a way playing yourself but you’re also playing what Jim is feeling you are.

Joel Schumacher: Especially in the book.

Danny Huston: Exactly, and also existing in this film noir gothic world that Joel has created.

Joel Schumacher: You like sort of being the Casanova kid actor a lot.

Danny Huston: Don’t I! (Schumacher laughs) As far as the number’s concerned, it’s just… I liken it to occasionally dabbling in gambling from time to time. You have a certain affection towards numbers and the moment the affection exists, you can’t help but find these coincidences everywhere. The superstition in a way is very contagious. After I saw the screening of the film the first time, a black cat crossed in front of me and I stopped immediately. Could that have something to do with the film? Has the film cursed me? And so you start to spin out. And that’s what was interesting from an acting point of view.

Jim Carrey: Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

Danny Huston: Yeah.

Jim Carrey: But it does get inside you a little bit.

Danny Huston: It gets you. Yeah.

Jim Carrey: Hitchcock was wonderful in his approach to things. He would make you look at something normal in a completely different way. Like in "The Birds,” it was like you could never look at birds the same way.

Joel Schumacher: Or the shower.

Jim Carrey: Yeah, the shower, exactly. It tapped into some kind of weird little bugaboo that everybody has, the fear of what’s on the other side of that curtain.

Joel Schumacher: I could never dress up like my mother after that.

Jim Carrey: Yeah, you had to let that go. (Laughs)

Joel Schumacher: Got to let it go. (Laughs) And that was such a great housedress too.

Q: Jim, you didn’t answer which character –

Jim Carrey: Which character was I? All of the above.

Q: Which did you feel the most comfortable being?

Jim Carrey: Well I love Walter because he’s the family guy. He’s the guy who wants to have a normal life. He’s most of us who want just 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 nothing is stable in the universe. We just want to keep things from moving too much or changing too much. So I like that character. He was very loving with his family and he loved his job. But the other character was a little bit different for me to play so that’s exciting for me.

Joel Schumacher: But you fell in love with playing Fingerling.

Jim Carrey: I did like Fingerling, and Jenny (McCarthy) liked it.

Virginia Madsen: I know she did.

Jim Carrey: It’s weird. It’s amazing what a tattoo does for a girl.

Joel Schumacher: I don’t know if Billy’s here, Billy Corso was the make up artist, but Jim and Billy stayed up all one night in the trailer and invented that tattoo.

Virginia Madsen: I was so pleased.

Jim Carrey: That was the reaction. It was hilarious because…

Joel Schumacher: It was so fabulous. I loved it. He thought I wouldn’t like it for some reason. He didn’t think I was hip enough to like this tattoo.

Jim Carrey: That’s the villain.

Joel Schumacher: That’s what they told me.

Jim Carrey: We didn’t know if you could get it. And he just went off for like three weeks he rubbed that one in. (imitating Schumacher) ‘Yes, well, I have done some hip things in my day.’ That thing just drove us crazy. But, yeah, I wanted to approach it right, so I came up to Joel and I said, ‘I wanted to tell you Joel that I know we’re doing the scene with the shirt off today, and I have this tattoo, and Billy and I are used to covering it up so if you don’t want to use it, that’s totally cool. We’ll just use it for something else,’ and I took my shirt off and he went, ‘That can’t be real!’ (Laughs)

Joel Schumacher: I didn’t say that. I said ‘I love it!’

Q: Can you describe it and how they put it on, and if you had to have it on for weeks at a time?

Jim Carrey: Billy painted it, originally painted it on, and so we got on the computer and played around with photo shop and just did a mock up of it, and then I stood there and he painted it on me. We were there ‘til like four or five in the morning downtown in the middle of nowhere, but it was so great. It turned out really cool, and then he worked it out so he came up with this process where he could actually do little pieces of a decal kind of thing where he could stick it on. It still took awhile, but he’s just amazing.

Joel Schumacher: And because a lot of the Fingerling world is so graphic and black and white and red, it was perfect. It was perfect to set up a lot of… and Virginia is in the black wig and mostly black underwear I’d say. (Laughs) Fabrizia doesn’t get dressed a lot.

Virginia Madsen: No, I recall one scene where I am just walking out and I just take my coat -- like leave with the lingerie.

Jim Carrey: And the interesting thing too is our relationship in the two different worlds. It’s like, when I kiss her as my wife, as Walter, it’s loving and sweet and it’s beautiful, and when we are together as Fabrizia and Fingerling, it’s angry and it’s basically…

Joel Schumacher: Blood is exchanged.

Jim Carrey: It’s biting and it’s eating. It’s consuming the other person. It’s pretty interesting.

Virginia Madsen: Yeah. (Laughs)

Q: Jim, do you have any tattoos? Do you want any?

Jim Carrey: I like to start in the center. (Laughs) No.

Q: Can you clarify who Walter is talking too?

Joel Schumacher: His son. There’s a letter to his son at the end. You see the son reading the letter. The whole thing is a letter to his son.

Q: Jim, is there anything that you’re obsessed with or that really consumes you?

Jim Carrey: The only thing that has ever really consumed me is love from time to time. Feeling like, ‘What is it? How do I get it?’ You know, all of those things have consumed my mind from time to time. My spiritual journey has been a good kind of thing that I’ve been on, I guess some people would say I’m obsessed with, but in a really good way. It’s just enjoyable. I don’t really have crazy obsessions about things.

Joel Schumacher: I think you are more seeking in that. I don’t think you’re obsessed. I think you are seeking. I think you’re a pupil. You’re a student.

Jim Carrey: I think obsessions happen because you’re trying to understand something or some urge. Like in the film, I believe it’s trying to avoid something.

Joel Schumacher: Well, there are also magnificent obsessions and there are tragic, evil obsessions. So obsession can be a great thing and it can also destroy lives as we’ve seen.

Q You mentioned Jenny (McCarthy) earlier…

Jim Carrey: Oh, I did it. (Laughs) I see. Can we just take some personal responsibility for the question you’re about to ask?

Joel Schumacher: You opened the door as they’d say in the Supreme Court.

Jim Carrey: This is your fault that I’m going to ask you something. (Laughs)

Q: You talked about being on this spiritual journey. I mean obviously when you’re in love, you’re in a difference place anyway. Being with her, do you feel closer to that good place that you’re trying to get to?

Jim Carrey: I feel that our relationship happened at a time that I am more ready than I have ever been in my life to have a relationship.

Joel Schumacher: This is the happiest I’ve ever seen Jim and we’ve been friends for a really long time.

Jim Carrey: And we also encourage each other and we’re both on the same path, so it’s really nice.

Joel Schumacher: And I’ve seen you when you’ve been really suffering in love.

Q: For the role of Fingerling, did you look at any noir characters from the past or from other film noir movies to get an inspiration for his personality and how he acts?

Jim Carrey: No, I didn’t really. I thought that if I was in that position, if I was that guy, how I would see myself and how it would basically bleed into your hair and into your eyes and into everything about you. The coat, all the choices are choices that somebody makes because of what’s going on in their spirit, you know. Every choice we make is based on that. The colors we wear, everything. It just bleeds into everything. It starts with a lie the person believes about themselves or the delusion they are living with or the pain that they’ve kind of accumulated, the things they aren’t dealing with. It all creeps out in certain ways. It’s fascinating.

Joel Schumacher: I think that it was more original than the usual noir cop. Because when you see a cop, especially in a black coat like that in a noir setting, you expect them to be the cynical, burnt out, alcoholic, corrupt cop.

Jim Carrey: We didn’t want him to be a life hater.

Joel Schumacher: But you see since it’s Walter’s delusion that has created this, there’s... I think the first time you see him is when he meets Fabrizia and you see one side of him. But when he goes to see the suicide blonde that Lynn Collins plays so brilliantly, there is a real compassion there, because of course, in Walter’s life his mother committed suicide and it’s the same actress who played his mother and the widow Dobkins and all that, because it’s all in his consciousness somewhere and subconsciousness. So, I think you can see in that scene how much he wants for her to have a better life than she’s giving herself. And I think that’s what is different about it. It’s not, ‘Life is shit. Everyone is shit. I’m on the take.’ And I think that’s the difference that Jim brought to it because it had Walter’s spirit in it somewhere.

Jim Carrey: You’re so lucky. (Laughs) I really just practiced some rudimentary things that I could do that would match the music, but I didn’t learn how to play the sax. I used to play the sax, oddly enough. See there are parallels all over the place. My father was an accountant, OK. He played the saxophone in a band. He had an orchestra. He played the saxophone. So, there were these parallels. I don’t know how many of them were actually in there already.

Joel Schumacher: Tons. Yes, tons.

Jim Carrey: So there were all these parallels going on anyway. I played in the school band but I forgot how to play it.

Joel Schumacher: I didn’t want to stop the movie for saxophone interludes. (Laughs)

Jim Carrey: No, no, nobody really wanted to see that.

Joel Schumacher: We had a lot of story to tell and the saxophone was one little tiny detail.

Jim Carrey: Exactly and I try to stay in decent shape always. I pride myself on staying at least a month away from [being in] really good shape for something.

Joel Schumacher: The only reason I asked Jim to play the Riddler is he was the only person who could have worn that green elastic, spandex suit. He’s always been in great shape.

Jim Carrey: That was on the thin side, that one.

Joel Schumacher: And he did all his own stunts in ‘Batman Forever’ too because there is no one who can do Jim’s body language.

Jim Carrey: It’s the weirdest thing. There are so many times I’m in positions where we try to double me in things and it can be literally the back of my body, like the back of my head or something, and they just go, ‘It just doesn’t look like him.’ (Laughs.) I don’t know. There is something about my posture or something. I have no idea what it is.

Joel Schumacher: It’s body language.

Q: Speaking of parallels, Jim, did you know that Hamilton, Ontario, Canada is 23 keystrokes on a computer?

Jim Carrey: No, I didn’t know that. (Laughs)

Q: We got you!

Virginia Madsen: Oh God. (Laughs)

Q: Would you go back there at all?

Jim Carrey: Yeah, sure, absolutely. Yeah, Burlington.

Q: Would you go back there now knowing that there are 23 letters?

Jim Carrey: Tomorrow, yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, it’s all working.

Joel Schumacher: 23 can bring good too.

Jim Carrey: Yeah, it’s not a bad thing. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Q: Is Hamilton a good thing or a bad thing?

Jim Carrey: It’s a good thing, man. It’s a tough town. It’s a tough town, steel town.

Q What do you remember about it?

Jim Carrey: Just that and good people. I had a great time. I lived in Burlington for about eight years right across the bay. And I basically thought I was going to be working in Dofasco. I was basically, that was where I was going, so if the career in show business hadn’t panned out, I was looking for a job in one of the steel mills because they were the great jobs.

Joel Schumacher: We always have to have a back up plan. I had many. I still have one.

Jim Carrey: Yeah, totally. I worked in Richmond Hill in a lot of the factories there and in many different factory jobs so I was kind of headed in that direction.

Joel Schumacher: Especially when you do stand up, you never know what is going to happen.

Jim Carrey: Right, yeah. But the 23 thing, I just wanted to point out there is a double 32 on this. (He holds up a digital recorder belonging to one of the journalists so the press can see.)

Virginia: That’s what he was showing me. I was like, ‘Oh my God!’

Jim Carrey: I wanted to show you also this because the other day when I came a couple of days ago, I was with my assistant and I wanted people to see what I see everyday. So basically I started saying, ‘Just get your camera phone out and start taking pictures whenever you see it.’ (he holds up a series of photographs for the press to see) So this was the first thing, the tow truck right besides us with the number 23 on the side of it. I didn’t photo shop this. I don’t know why that is, the number 23 on the side. I guess it’s the 23rd truck or something in their fleet. I don’t know what it is. So, I got them to take a picture of that. Then I looked to the car in front of us and that license plate started with 23. Then I got to the hotel room here and I was in 1223. Then I went out on my balcony and the address adjacent to the hotel is 323 if you want to see it when you leave. And then I ordered some breakfast (shows photo of bowl of cereal with number 23 floating on top in the milk). (Laughs) I mean, c’mon. Tell me that’s a coincidence. Tell me *that* is a coincidence. I mean look at that, man. That’s freaky. That’s eerie. (Schumacher and Carrey hum an eerie note together) OK, that last one was a joke, but the rest of them are real. The rest of them are real.

Joel Schumacher: A lot of them in the movie are real too. There is a website where people for years have been taking photos of the number 23 all over the planet. Why they do this, we don’t know, but I mean, you’ll see there are a lot of great photos of it. Some of them are in the movie. But the afternoon that Jim called me and said, ‘Are you going to do this movie The Number 23?’ And I said, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘Well, if you do it, I’ll do it.’ And I said, ‘Well if you do it, I’ll do it.’ And then that night I was really excited about it and it was about midnight and I’m brushing my teeth and I’m thinking, ‘Boy, I’ve made a lot of movies. This would be my 20th movie and Jim and I have been wanting to work together.’ And I said, "Gee, I wish it was number 23.’ And I’m brushing away and then suddenly the other side of my brain says, ‘What about your three television movies.’ (Laughs) ‘Wouldn’t this be your 23rd directing job?’ And I remember I had a houseguest and I ran across the house and I knocked on the door. Ely was there with his girlfriend. And I said, ‘Ely!’ and he was fast asleep, and he was like, ‘Huh?’ and I said, ‘Guess what? This will be my 23rd film.’ And he went, ‘Um, yeah, okay man.’ (Laughs)

Jim Carrey: That’s great man!

Joel Schumacher: So I couldn’t wait for the next morning to call Jim.

Jim Carrey: Here is an example of something. I’m on the internet, IM’ing somebody, a friend of mine about changing the name of my company to JC23 and why I did it, about the valley of the shadow of death. At that very moment that I typed those words, a friend of mine walks into the room with a newspaper that on the front page has a giant picture of Death Valley and it says, ‘Death Valley Blooms’ and Death Valley was blooming for the first time in 100 years because of that extraordinary amount of rain we had that year and these seeds had been lying dormant for 100 years and suddenly it was all flowers. And he was like, ‘We gotta go on a motorcycle trip man.’ And I was like, ‘Here we go. It’s leading me on some weird journey again.’ And so we got on the motorcycles, did a three-day trip through Death Valley, and came back, and the day we got back the Pope died at 2:37 eastern standard time -- 23 which is the valley of the shadow of death and 7 which is the number of completion in the bible. Everything is based on 7 in the bible. Starts and ends with 7. Pretty trippy.

Q: Were all the characters filmed at once or were they filmed intermittently?

Joel Schumacher: Sometimes they had to play both characters on the same day. We had not a lot of money and not a lot of time to make this movie and a lot of complex things. So, as you know, when you are in a setting that’s where you have to shoot everything out so that you don’t have to go back there and rent that again and get licenses, etc. So, those were the hardest days, I think, when you have to do both characters. And sometimes Jim was supposed to do three characters in the sense that he’d be young Walter in the flashback, the present day Walter, and Fingerling all in the same day, and I think that was the most difficult for him.

Virginia Madsen: (to Carrey) I loved when you were young Walter. He had this bowl hair, it was so cute. And your whole body language would change and you’d be like, ‘Hey!’ (Laughs) But when he would change into Fingerling, something happens where you just metabolize your role and your whole face would change.

Jim Carrey: It got very craggy.

Virginia Madsen: Yeah. It was like you got really like dehydrated or something.

Jim Carrey: Something does happen when you take on a role. It’s very strange. Before I did ‘Man on the Moon’…

Joel Schumacher: You would be a different person when you came on the set. You too, Virginia. I saw you change, Virginia. At first you were a little hesitant about Fabrizia because she’s so unlike you, but I think the minute you saw that first clip of her, you thought, ‘Oh, I get it. I get it.’

Virginia Madsen: But it was interesting what you were saying the other day, which I never realized, but when we were Fingerling and Fabrizia, we didn’t really talked to each other very much.

Joel Schumacher: Right.

Virginia Madsen: Whereas when we were Agatha and Walter we were always hanging out and we were all telling stories and it was like we were really affectionate, but then [as Fingerling and Fabrizia] we were really separate. Then we’d be like (makes growling sound) "Rah, rah, rah!’

Joel Schumacher: You would knit on the set and not talk to many people and Jim would put his earphones on.

Virginia Madsen: But also, many people wouldn’t talk to me.

Jim Carrey: I was listening to a lot of Nine Inch Nails and stuff like that.

Virginia Madsen: And I would sort of walk on like I had to give myself permission to do that.

Joel Schumacher: Well Fabrizia is a very intimidating person.

Virginia Madsen: Well yeah, suddenly all the women would have something that they had to do. And then all the men would be like, ‘Uhhh?’ like they had a job to do. So after a few hours, I got really lonely when I was her, you know, because I was so isolated and I hate that more than anything to be isolated.

Q: Jim, when you did "Man on the Moon,” you stayed in character day and night practically. Did you do that on this movie in any way?

Jim Carrey: No.

Q: Was that the only film you’ve done that way?

Jim Carrey: That’s the only film because I felt like Andy needed special treatment.

Joel Schumacher: And Andy did that.

Jim Carrey: Andy would have done that. That’s why I did it. I kind of approached it like Andy came back from the dead to do his story, and so he would want to have the same kind of fun with people that he would have had had he done his own story. He literally had breakdowns on the set about missing the afterlife, that his job in the afterlife was to take care of all the kids, and play games with the kids, and he missed it.

Q: Jim, you became known for one thing and then you made a lot of different sidebar choices. Are you ever concerned about what your fans will think about you and what their expectations are of you, and what is your expectation of how they take you in with all these choices that you make?

Jim Carrey: (sings) ‘Love me as I am.’ The one thing that I’m really proud of is that I love people and I want them to enjoy the work absolutely without question, but I know for sure, I believe in the thing that Emerson says in his essay on self-reliance about what’s true for you is true for all men. And so I try to do things that actually connect with me, and whether they’re comedy or drama or any of those things, I don’t consider patronizing the audience. I consider what’s true for me and I hope that it will connect with someone, and I know if it’s really true for me, it will connect with someone. In many cases, it will connect with a great many people and that’s all I really consider.

Q: Do you think it’s because you’re a little older now and perhaps a little more introspective or maybe because you’re in love?

Jim Carrey: I always have been introspective since I was a little kid, since I could remember. I was sitting in a closet trying to write out the meaning of the universe. That’s been my whole life.

Joel Schumacher: I have never known or worked with anyone who’s a comic genius, which I definitely put Jim in that category, that doesn’t have the most private, introspective sides, and I can name all of them for you, but that’s really the basis. I mean if anybody in this room thinks that comics are happy, believe me the degree of their comic brilliance is based on truly being so overly sensitive and understanding and seeing everything in life, and dealing with the darkest parts of life with humor. And also, see I think that’s an old-fashioned concept because I think in old Hollywood they would stick people in a compartment and that’s what they did. You were a sex symbol, you were the character actor, you were the funny man, but I think that Woody Allen and Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin and Robin Williams certainly have managed to show many sides of their art and their artistry and the audience has not only embraced it, but I think encouraged it on many levels. And the first movie I ever saw Jim in, he was a teenager and he did a movie called "Doing Time on Maple Drive,” where he plays a teenage alcoholic in the suburbs. It was a very intense role. I knew him to be an actor before I ever went to see his stand up, which was equally brilliant, and I think it just depended on where your opportunities were.

Jim Carrey: Right, most of the people that you might be talking about if that is true, they may have warmed to me as a person because of the comedy and I think that, like I said before, human beings just innately don’t like change. They buck it at every turn every time something changes, ‘I don’t know about that.’

Joel Schumacher: It’s scary.

Jim Carrey: It’s a scary thing for people, so there’s always resistance to it, but Dylan went electric and he never looked back. And we bitched and moaned when it happened, but that’s not his concern. His concern is be true to himself and then invite you in to see it, and go, ‘Hope you like it.’

Q: Okay, Valentine’s Day roundups. We’ll take most romantic Valentine’s Day ever, Valentine’s horror stories, or even just your plans for the holiday.

Jim Carrey: (whispers to Schumacher) I’m going to take off.

Virginia Madsen: Don’t ask me!

Joel Schumacher: Do you have a Valentine this year, Virginia?

Virginia Madsen: Huh? What?

Joel Schumacher: Her Valentine is her son, Jack.

Virginia Madsen: Yeah, I’ll be doing arts and crafts with the neighborhood kids. That’s what I’ll be doing.

Joel Schumacher: We know Jim has a Valentine.

Virginia Madsen: Yes, you have the most romantic Valentines. You’re going to go ice skating or something. (Carrey laughs) Can you imagine what a great Valentine you would be?

Joel Schumacher: (to Danny Huston): Do you have Valentine’s plans?

Danny Huston: I’ll take my daughter out.

Joel Schumacher: Danny’s going to take his daughter out. (pause) I’ve never had a Valentine in my whole life. No one’s ever loved me.

Jim Carrey: That’s a good story. (Laughs) That’s a great story. Man, that’ll get you through.

Q: Do you have any great horror stories or great romantic stories for Valentine’s Day?

Jim Carrey: You know, I remember a lot of Valentine’s Days having to act and that’s a horrible thing to feel. I think Valentine’s Day should be a moving thing. And it should pop up when you feel the most loving. But, because it’s a set thing with a date, it doesn’t coincide with how people feel most of the time, you know?

Virginia Madsen: It’s kind of evil too because it starts at like the car wash. You’ll walk in like just right after Christmas and there’ll be like a little bear going (demonstrates) ‘ha-ha!’ and then it creeps into the Sav-On.

Joel Schumacher: They found out how much money they could make on it and it’s now all over the world. We’ve really corrupted the planet Earth.

Jim Carrey: Oh, there’s room for more holidays. There’s room for more holidays.

Q: What was the first movie you remember seeing in a theater as a kid?

Jim Carrey: As a kid in the theater [it] was ‘The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes,’ starring Kurt Russell. And I’ve told him that. I’ve told Kurt Russell that and he’s like, ‘Dude, that’s like too confronting for me.’ But, yeah, I remember in Toronto, I lived in Willowdale and I walked about a mile and a half to the Willow Show and just going into the movie theater was such an incredible experience—wonderful, like, ‘Wow, this is magic!’ And yeah, it was ‘The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.’

Q: What movie resonates as the funniest movie you’ve seen?

Jim Carrey: Well, a lot of funny movies, I mean "A Shot in the Dark” with Peter Sellers was a genius comedy because it went all over the place. It was not only character funny, it was intellectually funny and physically hilarious. Always it kept you off guard. I think that’s a genius movie. And the genius around him as well as with the other actors, you know, all of that. So, that was one of my favorites and one of my kind of modern favorites was Richard E. Grant in "How to Get Ahead in Advertising.” He was brilliant in that movie, really brilliant. Oh, it’s so funny. It’s so funny.

Q: There’s been several cast members from "In Living Color” that have gone on to make a name for themselves including one of the Fly Girls.

Jim Carrey: Everyone’s doing their thing, man. It’s amazing.

Q: Do you have any plans for collaboration maybe with any of them?

Jim Carrey: I hope so at some point. In these situations, you really have to… It has to be completely perfect for everybody. It has to be comfortable for everybody, and those things don’t come around a lot, but I sure hope they do. I would love to work with Jamie and… It’s really fantastic though, seeing everybody doing so well. It’s really amazing.

Joel Schumacher: You never know if you can work together again. We’ve been wanting to work together. I’ve been wanting to work with Virginia since she was a teenager. She came in and auditioned for ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ and she was great but she was too young.

Virginia Madsen: I was still in Chicago.

Joel Schumacher: Yeah. And Danny I’ve always been a fan of his and he was available which was really great for this part. So you never know when you can work again and I said to Jim at the end of this, ‘Maybe we’ll do something lighter next time’ but we don’t know because we don’t know what that would be. I mean that’s just talking in a vacuum.

Jim Carrey: But it’s amazing how many people have come from that show and done so well. It was fantastic and gave birth to a lot of talent.

Joel Schumacher: That was a great, great show.

Jim Carrey: Amazing.

Q: What year is this film set? Why did you avoid the internet and cell phones?

Joel Schumacher: Because I didn’t want to spend the whole film with everybody on computers and cell phones because it’s not about that. It’s about these characters. Also, I felt that Walter and Agatha, you know she has her own business, she’s the center of that, and he’s chosen a life where there isn’t a lot of stress and aggravation from people. They have a very safe life where they don’t have a lot of friends. He’s had a major catharsis trauma in his life, and even though she doesn’t quite know what it is, there’s that sense. It’s like someone who has come back from the war and seen terrible things or done terrible things, and they just never talk about it in their family. And that family unit is so important to them and she’s the center of her own artistic business. It does well. And men who are in a truck all day like that, they are very much free in certain ways. He’s basically dealing with just someone on a phone and animals, and that can be stressful, the animals, but it’s not the same as being in an office or in a corporate situation. So I didn’t want to make the movie be about technology, and I didn’t think that they would have to embrace all of that. There actually are people who refuse to have those things in their life because they want less stress in their life. And I just didn’t want the whole movie to be about that because it’s about the people in it and not about those things. Also, having done a whole movie in a phone booth with seven thousand phones and cell phones, I wanted to do actors acting and not ‘Hello, yes,’ and then cut to the other person on the phone, ‘Damn it, my battery’s not working.’ But it’s a good question.

Q: You mentioned earlier that you listened to a lot of Nine Inch Nails before you did this role. Are there any bands or music that you listen to, to get you in the mood to act or to get into character maybe for a rough sex scene, you know, Cannibal Corpse or something?

Jim Carrey: I don’t go to Cannibal Corpse too much, you know, but I do use music a lot.

Joel Schumacher: Jim introduced us to a lot of alternative music that we didn’t know.

Jim Carrey: I do like it.

Joel Schumacher: He shops music.

Jim Carrey: I found the song that’s in the movie, the theme song of Fabrizia and Fingerling.

Joel Schumacher: ‘She Wants Revenge’ which is a great group.

Jim Carrey: Which I just heard. That rocks, that’s so cool. But, yeah, I use music a lot and it was fun too. It’s interesting too. I think everybody creates the character. I mean, he creates the character, people on the set, the lighting, everything creates character. So the sound people on the movie, they were so excited when I came to them and I said, ‘For certain scenes, I want an earwig with music blasting in my ear during the scene.’ And they go, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ And I go ‘Seriously, like the weirdest things you can possibly find, like disturbing sounds, things that are really horrifying that really unnerve you.’ And they were like (in a low voice) ‘Great, man’ and they went away and they came up with this wonderful collection of sound bytes and things like that of different things happening and music. And so I would use them in certain scenes and at times I would also, in the scene where I’m kind of going crazy by myself in the hotel room, I would get Joel, I would have that music, and I would get Joel in my ear just messing with me, just trying to screw me up, like talk to me at times when I’m trying to concentrate on certain things.

Joel Schumacher: I’d say terrible things.

Jim Carrey: And I literally ended up at certain times telling him to go f*ck himself, you know, and stuff like that, because it would so get in my way that it would be unnerving, but that’s what I wanted. So it came off like someone talking to me.

Virginia Madsen: You had that great music the first night I was Fabrizia. The introduction of that music he gave to the sound guys and it was blaring out there on the street. God, I felt so super cool.

Jim Carrey: Music can do that, man. It’s amazing.

Q: Did you say you had an earwig? Did you have something in your ear?

Virginia Madsen: It’s like a receiver.

Jim Carrey: Yeah, so I could be sitting here right now listening to you and rocking out and you wouldn’t know it. I have a self-help tape on right now. I am a winner by the way. And everything comes easily to me.

Joel Schumacher: I will have a Valentine.

Jim Carrey: That’s right. (Laughs) I will have a Valentine.

Virginia Madsen: I’m my own Valentine.

Jim Carrey: Ah, jeez.

Joel Schumacher: That’s great.

Q: Danny, I keep thinking about the things your dad, John Huston, did and how comfortable you are with the whole noir world.

Danny Huston: Well I suppose dressing up, it’s a lot of fun and you’re putting stuff on. In a way, it’s kind of playful, but ultimately I supposed what you’re doing with make-up is you’re kind of chiseling at yourself and finding a new person by doing so. Sometimes it feels like you’re hiding behind the stuff but in actual fact, you’re revealing another part of yourself. The film noir element – I don’t think -- I agree with Jim. We weren’t really revisiting the old noir films. It was an extension of what Jim’s character was feeling that we were living in.

Q: It’s kind of like "Gaslight.”

Danny Huston: Yeah.

Jim Carrey: Guilt. Guilty manifestation.

Danny Huston: Yeah. I suppose the possible danger was it becoming too arch and especially with the character that I was playing which was supposed to be slightly lecherous at times. The weirdest situation for me was when I pick up the knife and I approach Virginia. We were working on focus marks for the camera and we’re look at each other and she’s tied to the bed and I’m kneeling on the bed, holding a knife and she’s bleeding and it was like, ‘Hi, we haven’t spoken in a long time.’ (Laughs)

Joel Schumacher: We tried digitally not to copy old noir either. We tried to create our own noir – the white room and there’s the scene where he’s interviewing Jim in his psychiatrist’s office. They’re on this – and they loved it – but they’re on this platform that’s moving. It’s insane. It means nothing. Why did we do it? It just looks cool. Does it have a Freudian purpose? No. It just looks good.

Virginia Madsen: It just looks cool.

Jim Carrey: The original dialogue was ‘My ride is over. I have to go now. Sir, you’ll have to get off the ride. Can we go again?’

Joel Schumacher: The first chapter is like a child’s book and then it gets very dark, you know, the one where you’re sort of zooming. He starts out in a very innocent sense so we tried to take you on a journey that eventually the book and his past memories become the same thing.

Q: You look like you had a lot of fun directing this? The camera goes everywhere. There’s all kinds of lighting.

Joel Schumacher: Well, we have a great cameraman. We have Matthew Libatique and I had done ‘Phone Booth’ and ‘Tigerland’ with him. And I know you guys fell in love with him because Jim had asked once to work with him. But he is a brilliant young cinematographer, but that was part of the fun of doing it. He just did ‘The Fountain’ and he did ‘Requiem for a Dream.’ The whole point of it is we tried to make every choice so that we’d give the audience something unique. That’s all. You know, something maybe they’d have that they don’t see every day.

Danny Huston: In a way, it’s not film noir, it’s film red.

Joel Schumacher: Yeah, well we used a lot of red for obvious reasons, but it was fun directing and I said to Jim, actually on our last day, that I was sad it was over. It was one of those movies where the last day it wasn’t like, ‘Okay. Thank God, I’ve got to go on vacation. This is it.’ I was sad because I learned a lot. It was great.

Jim Carrey: We had a lot of laughs.

Joel Schumacher: We learned a lot from these people and the other people that worked on it. Logan Lerman who played their son is a brilliant young actor and he was great and we treated him like an adult on the set and they did as parents. We made that choice and that was great.

Q: What are you doing next, Jim?

Jim Carrey: Well, I’m working on ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not!’ with Tim Burton.

Virginia Madsen: I’m so excited for that movie.

Joel Schumacher: That’s going to look great.

Jim Carrey: Yeah, it’s going to be really fun. And, at the moment, I’m doing ‘Horton Hears a Who,’ the cartoon version of ‘Horton Hears a Who,’ which is going to be beautiful which I love. I’ve always loved all Dr. Seuss, and I’m lucky enough to have been the Grinch, and Audrey Geisel, Dr. Seuss’ widow, liked what I did and she asked me to do Horton. And I love that idea that a person is a person no matter how small and the idea of worlds within worlds within worlds. Because sometimes I sit out in my backyard and I look at the birds, and a hummingbird will come down and go ‘wap’ and goes flying past my head and will threaten me and stuff like that, and I realize that he has no respect for my deed to the land, you know? That’s his property as far as he’s concerned. And that’s just the reality. We think that we’re the ones in control. Everybody does.

Q: Is that why you have your hippie hair?

Jim Carrey: My hippie hair… Wow, man, how long has it been? It’s 40 years since that’s been. I have this hair because I am. (Laughs)

Virginia Madsen: Because he can!

Q: Are you going to have to do crazy things for Ripley’s?

Jim Carrey: Crazy things?

Q: Yeah, all the ‘can you believe it’ things?

Jim Carrey: Yeah, it’s going to be wonderful. It’s just an incredible world to open up, you know. And he was very much the champion of the underdog and people who were a little bit different and freakish.

Joel Schumacher: But he was very glamorous and a great womanizer. I mean he’s a glamorous guy. Jim showed me a lot of photos of him. He had the most beautiful Chinese girlfriends I’ve ever seen in my life. (Laughs) They all looked like Gong Li.

Jim Carrey: He was about celebrating life. He was about proving its specialness.

Joel Schumacher: And a beautiful dresser, a snappy dresser.

Q: Thank you.

Joel Schumacher: Thanks everybody.

"The Number 23” opens in theater on February 23^rd.