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Jim Carrey New York Times Interview part 2
30 Jun 2020 By Eva Ara�jo (Web correspondent)
The last part of the New York Times interview:
Was there any point in your process that Jim said you�re taking things too far or we can�t go there?
VACHON He�s the only person in his position who would be like, �I�m OK having a climactic combat scene where I just load ammo. I don�t need any confirmed kills. In fact, I don�t even need a gun.�
CARREY I was talking to Nic Cage a couple days ago. I hadn�t told him anything about the book and then one day I sprung it on him, and he just said, [Nicolas Cage voice] �Jim, I�m so honored, man. You have no idea.� I said, I gave you all the best lines. [Cage voice] �It�s unheard of!� He�s so excited about it.
Have you told the other celebrities you reference by name that they�re characters in the book?
CARREY We�re sending everybody books with letters of explanation of what we�re doing.
VACHON �Dear Gwyneth.�
CARREY It�s satire and parody but also done with reverence. Most of the people in this book are people whom I admire greatly.
Does that include the character you say for legal purposes will be referred to only as �Laser Jack Lightning�?
CARREY That�s just us poking fun at the litigiousness of Hollywood. I know Tom Cruise. He may sock me, but hey, I�ll take the beating for a piece of art. I think he�s going to love it.
Dana, were there ever times when this project felt like a real-life version of �Sunset Boulevard�?
VACHON Totally.
CARREY [eyes widening in delight] Who does that make me?
VACHON �Barton Fink� was more what would come to mind. But by the point I had concerns, it was too late.
CARREY This took a grip of us.
VACHON And also, it wasn�t eight years of total work. We really worked hard, intensely, for the last two. But we were always both working on other things.
The book very vividly depicts its protagonist�s intense frustration with Hollywood and his estrangement from his own work and accomplishments. Jim, how much does that represent your own true feelings?
CARREY �The Truman Show� was not a mistake. I�m a guy that suddenly looked up one day and started seeing all the machinery and the lights falling from the sky. Every project is a little bit of me recreating myself, tearing the old self down and exploring something new. My whole career I�ve asked a lot of my audience, and they�ve allowed me to do these things. I think they expect that of me, in a certain way. They don�t expect convention.
Dana, do you think you�ve emerged from this project a different writer?
CARREY [to Vachon] Watch it. Watch it.
VACHON I don�t think you can spend eight years working with somebody and not be changed. It freed me. People in New York spend many years on a single story. In L.A., there�s a deftness and a confidence in, let�s just get this done, versus the East Coast idea of, we�ll listen to God. Writing�s lonely, so it was great to have a writing partner. It could be 3 o�clock in the afternoon, you�d be like, �Yo, dude, what�s going on? What did you do today?� And it still felt like work.
Jim, do you think you�ve arrived at a different understanding about creativity or celebrity?
CARREY An artist is a custodian of a divine spark and these people, no matter how complex or strange their character, they have a connection to something divine and they can give you that connection through their work. That�s all I�ve ever wanted. Whether I was doing something funny or serious, all I�ve ever wanted, from the time I was a little child, was to free people from concern. This book, I think, is just an example of that. And I think we get there in the book. We get to a place where we give them a touch of that.
Here�s the link to the article.
We�re counting down the days for this book to be available. It�s going to be so great and so much fun to read. Have you gotten your copy yet? You can pre-order it now in Amazon!
We at JCO will keep you updated as more news come.
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