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PARK CITY, Utah -- Jim Carrey isn't wishing he knew how to quit Ewan McGregor. Yet anyway.
Asked what it was like to lock lips with the Trainspotting and Star Wars actor for their dark comedy I Love You Phillip Morris, Carrey told the audience at Sunday's Sundance premiere it was "a dream come true. Come on, look at the guy."
Yesterday at a news conference, Carrey admitted he wasn't quite so gung-ho. " 'What will it be like to kiss Ewan? Will I like it and how will that affect me and Jenny (McCarthy)?' Those are the honest thoughts that go through your head."
McGregor, though, shrugged the whole matter off. "It wasn't awkward. You're not playing a gay or a straight character. You're playing someone who's in love ... As an actor you're always looking for interesting stories. I've played gay characters so I've kissed men before."
Based on true story -- but one more preposterous than most fictitious Hollywood fare -- I Love You Phillip Morris may be the highest-profile gay-themed film since Brokeback Mountain, although the tone could not be more radically different. No surprise there. It marks the directorial debut of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, whose most notable credit is penning the hilarious, profane, politically-incorrect Bad Santa. But despite the comedic bent -- and the presence of A-list stars -- it wasn't an easy sell. They wound up getting financing out of Europe and brought it to Sundance in the hopes of landing a distributor. "There are people in my world who were like 'Are you sure you want to do this?'" Carrey admits. "And I said, 'Absolutely.' I don't think it's a gay movie. It's a movie about humanity and the lengths we go to for acceptance and love."
It's a sentiment echoed by producer Andrew Lazar. "We've all been lovesick. Gay or straight, anyone can identify with that."
In the film, Carrey plays Steve Russell, a closeted family man turned swindler who, after being arrested and imprisoned, fell madly in love with a fellow inmate named Phillip Morris.
The movie is based on the book by Houston journalist Steven McVicker, who chronicled how Russell repeatedly busted out of prison in the hopes of reuniting with Morris. An accomplished con man who at one point scammed a company into hiring him as their CFO, he did everything from falsify documents so that his bail could be reduced from $900,000 to $40,000 to colour his uniform green in order to pose as a prison doctor. Russell is currently serving a life sentence in Texas, where he is in 23-hour-a-day lockdown.
"I loved the fact that I couldn't figure out whether I loved him or hated him," Carrey said. "From one page of the script to the next, I'd be attracted, then disturbed by how he behaved."
But he has yet to meet him. "They're not nuts about us doing this movie in Texas," he said. "He embarrassed a lot of people."
"He's a very unassuming guy," Requa said. "But there is an intelligence behind the calm exterior."
But Carrey was privy to recordings of interviews McViker conducted with Russell. "It was fascinating to hear someone who for whom a certain amount of self-importance is crucial, ponder the idea of someone making a movie about his life that he was never going to see. It was sad and poignant."
Morris, however, was freed in 2006 and lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, where McGregor visited him prior to shooting. "I went there and he picked me up in the airport. I spent about a day and a half with him. It was fascinating because I'd never done that: Met someone I'd be playing. But it's not an impersonation."
So while Morris will see the movie -- he texted McGregor over the holidays to report he saw and was thrilled by the trailer -- Russell may not.
"He supposedly will never get out," Carrey said, adding, "although he could be here now."