USA: Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen and stars of the "The Number 23" gather in downtown Los Angeles for the premiere of the psychological thriller

"The Number 23" gives audiences a Jim Carrey they've never seen before, as the psychological thriller also starring Virginia Madsen and directed by blockbuster veteran Joel Schumacher premieres in Los Angeles. "The Number 23," a psychological thriller starring Jim Carrey and Virginia Madsen and directed by Joel Schumacher premieres at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The film, about a man whose life begins to unravel as he becomes obsessed with what is known by some as the "23 enigma," was of particular interest to Carrey, who began noticing the number's presence in everyday life some time ago. "My obsession goes back quite a while, and it was handed to me by a friend in Canada who would point out license plates and how they added up to 23 and everything like that, and I said he was crazy, and then I started seeing it everywhere, and that's what is going to happen to people when they come to this movie. That's part of the reason why I took this movie because I felt I could have that fun game going with people, and you know when they leave the theatre they're not going to leave with the popcorn box, they're going to get in their car and start adding things up, and it's really fun, really fun for me," Carrey told Reuters at the film's premiere. The film is about an everyday family man named Walter Sparrow (Carrey) whose wife (Madsen) picks up a so-called "novel of obsession" on the 23 enigma. She gives the book to her husband, who in turn reads it compulsively, believing his life to be paralleled to the story's main character, a detective on the trail of the mysterious number and its murderous effects. The film is told in two different lights, one of the reality of the Sparrow family grappling with Walter's growing obsession, and the seedy world of criminals and "bad girls" imagined in the novel, with each actor playing two separate roles. "Well it was exciting for me to play two different roles, and interesting to sort of take these two different images of Virginia Madsen, you know, that I was sort of the nice lady like in "Sideways" and the sort of femme fatale and have them both collide in one film," says actress Virginia Madsen, of her dual roles in "The Number 23." It is not usual for comedic talent Carrey to take roles of such serious subject matter, but he was happy to sink his teeth into the project, and is hopeful that "The Number 23" will open audiences up to a side of him they've never seen. "Fingerling was such a great character to play because he's like, he's kind of the dark side of Walter a little bit, and the expression of what's suppressed, and was a chance to play a guy who was like really hardened by his experience, and like a guy who needs to be cut so he can feel something, and so he's attracted to a pretty wicked woman, you know? Because he wants to get hurt, frankly, I think. And it was just interesting to see people's reactions to that, the women's reaction to it was incredible, it was wild," he said. "The Number 23" opens in theatres on, of course, February 23rd.

ITN Source | February 15, 2007

Tags:. .reality. .mysterious. .actor. .frankly. .character