'THE NUMBER 23' Mystical figure interests actor
http://www.dispatch.com/features-story.php?story=dispatch/2007/02/18/20070218-D1-03.html

'THE NUMBER 23'
Mystical figure interests actor
Cindy Pearlman
NEW YORK TIMES SYNDICATE

In the mood for something new, Jim Carrey seems especially receptive
to all things "23."
The actor stars in The Number 23, a thriller that will open,
appropriately, on Feb. 23.
Carrey plays Walter, a suburban father and dogcatcher leading a
normal life until the day his wife (Virginia Madsen) buys a strange
book, written anonymously, about the number 23.

Suddenly their lives start falling apart, careening into mayhem and
murder.
Walter even looks different from any previous Carrey character, with
long, dark hair and a large, creepy, gothic tattoo.

Actually, he says, the idea isn't so different from those of most other
Carrey movies, which are usually weird. It's simply weird in a different
way.
"I loved this character, Walter, because he's the ultimate family
guy," says Carrey, 45. "He's a guy who just wants to have a normal life.
He's most of us who just want things to be stable. But, like most of us,
Walter is in denial. I think that we're all in a constant state of
denial about the fact that we live on plates of rock that are floating
through an unknown universe."

The fact that a simple number causes Walter's universe to go berserk
isn't as bizarre as it sounds. There are those who think that there is
something mystical about the number 23.
"A friend of mine in Canada handed it down to me because he saw it
everywhere," Carrey says. "Then he gave me a book of 23 phenomena, which
listed all the strange dates and odd occurrences. I thought he was
crazy. But then I started seeing 23 everywhere.

"It entered my life in a big way," he says. "Suddenly I started driving
all of my friends crazy."
Then someone mentioned Psalm 23, the Biblical poem with the passage
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. . . . Yea, though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."
"It's basically about living without fear and knowing that you're
taken care of," Carrey says.
Suddenly things made sense to Carrey, to such an extent that he even
changed the name of his production company from Pitbull Productions to
JC23.
"I was on the Net talking to someone about changing the name of my
company to JC23," Carrey recalls, "and my friend talked about that
psalm. . . . about the 'valley of the shadow of death.' At the same
time, another friend walked into my office with a newspaper . . . that
had a big headline that read, 'Death Valley Blooms.' It was the first
time in 100 years that it did bloom because of extraordinary rain. Those
seeds were waiting for 100 years.

"I thought: 'How fitting. I think I'm on a weird and special journey
here,' " Carrey says.
Then he got a phone call that turned things a little spooky.
"I was explaining this company-name change to another friend," the
actor says, "and he said: 'That's funny. I just wrote a script about the
number 23.' I was totally freaked out. The first page of the script had
me as this animal catcher capturing a pit bull. I went from Pitbull
Productions to JC23, and the reason was not lost on me.

"The writer even told me to turn to the 23 rd page in his script and
then asked me to start circling every 23 rd word on that page. It was
written like a code that was really cool."
Carrey has a folder of pictures he took to document "23 incidents."

"I took these with my camera phone," Carrey says. "Look, here's a tow
truck from when my car broke down, with a 23 on the side. It's the 23 rd
truck in their fleet. I got the driver to take a picture of me with it.
Look at the car in front of us in the picture. He has a 23 on his
license plate.
"When I got to the hotel room here," he continues, "I was put in Room
1223. I look out my terrace, and the awning across the street is for the
address 323. And then I ordered some breakfast, and there was a 23
written on my pancakes.

"OK, I made the last one up," he says, laughing. "But the rest is true,
and it's eerie and freaky."
In a separate interview, director Joel Schumacher offers his own "23
incident," from the day he agreed to make the film.
"I was brushing my teeth afterward thinking, 'It will be my 20 th
movie if I do it, and I wish it were my 23 rd,' " he recalls. "But then
I thought, 'What about those two TV movies? So this is your 23 rd job.'
I couldn't wait for the next morning to call Jim and tell him about it."

The Number 23 is far from Carrey's first drama ? his resume includes
everything from The Dead Pool (1988) and Simon Birch (1998) to Man on
the Moon (1999) and The Majestic (2001) ? but it's easily his darkest.
Still, he insists that he doesn't think of his work in terms of dramas,
comedies, thrillers or whatever categories people might put them into.

"I've really always thought of myself as someone who lives in the middle
of this wheel," he says. "I'm able to go to the extremes ? which is
the outside of the wheel. I can go out there and be zany and fun, but I
can also go another route on the wheel and do something with depth and
seriousness. There are many different colors to paint with when you're
an artist.

"More than anything, I don't want to get trapped in just one type of
role. I think funny is an appendage, but it's not my whole body."