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 Jim Carrey. |
HOLLYWOOD -- The rubber-faced romance between Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy is still ssss-mokin'.
"I feel like our relationship happened at a time when I'm more ready than I've ever been to have a relationship," the 45-year-old comic superstar told journalists yesterday while promoting his forthcoming paranoid paranormal thriller The Number 23.
"We also encourage each other and we're both on the same path."
Says Carrey's director and friend, Joel Schumacher, "It's the happiest I've ever seen Jim and I've known him for a really long time. And I've seen (him) when he's really been suffering."
Carrey and McCarthy began dating at the end of 2005, a few months after the 34-year-old Playboy cover girl and actress split from husband John Asher. She and Asher have a four-year-old son, Evan.
Carrey has been married twice before -- first to Melissa Womer, who he divorced in 1995 after seven years of marriage, and actress Lauren Holly, who he divorced in 1997 after a year.
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He and Womer have a 19-year-old daughter, Jane.
He also was engaged to Oscar-winner Reese Witherspoon -- that ended in 2000.
Although Carrey and McCarthy have managed to keep their romance relatively low-profile -- representatives for the pair denied reports last fall they were already secretly engaged -- they did appear in Rome together in November to attend Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' high-profile nuptials.
In The Number 23, opening Feb. 23, Carrey plays a family man whose life unravels when he becomes consumed with the real-life enigma that surrounds the numeral. (A Google of all things 23 reveals a cult-like reverence for the number, which some believe possesses mystical qualities.)
But in real life, the Newmarket, Ont.-born Carrey says, "The only thing that has ever really consumed me is love, from time to time -- the feeling of, what is it, how do I get it, you know, those things.
"Those things have consumed my mind from time to time. The rest of it, my spiritual journey has been a good kind of thing that 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. I think obsessions happen because you're trying to understand something."
Says Schumacher, "There are also great, magnificent obsessions and there are also tragic, evil obsessions. Obsession can be a great thing."
Along with exploring the mythos of 23, the film also allows Carrey the chance to portray dual roles -- as a timid dog-catcher named Walter Sparrow and as a hard-boiled detective named Fingerling.
While Carrey won't pick a favourite character between the two, he admits, "Jenny liked (Fingerling). It's amazing what a tattoo does for a girl."