“If Capra can be deemed a genre, then I feel like we’re making a Capra,” says director Darabont of this McCarthy-era drama in which a blacklisted screenwriter (Carrey) gets amnesia and is mistaken for a small-town soldier presumed dead in the war. “It’s about a man who learns what it’s like to live as a hero and isn’t able to go back,” Carrey says. “We’re all faced sooner or later with the choice of whether to grow into adulthood or not.” It’s a transition the star himself has been grappling with, as he tackles roles as shticky as Ace Ventura and the Grinch, and as complex as Truman Burbank and Andy Kaufman. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to be this magical elixir man,” the actor says. “I’m realizing now that the real magic is the fact that I’m like everybody else.” He worked with acting teacher Larry Moss (who coached Helen Hunt for As Good as It Gets) on this film. “We did a lot of getting in touch with the monster at 40,000 fathoms,” Carrey says. The result was both a psychological and a physical duality. “Days when I’m playing [screenwriter] Pete, I’m bummed out,” the actor says. “But on [soldier] Luke days, I literally grow two inches. I have the wardrobe guy going, ‘How come this suit doesn’t fit now?’ ”
Prison Break: After The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, Darabont welcomed the chance to direct a movie that doesn’t involve “conversations through bars,” he says. “I joke about having gotten my parole now.”
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The Majestic
Starring: Jim Carrey, Martin Landau, and Laurie Holden
Directed by: Frank Darabont
(Warner Bros., December 21)
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Copyright © 2008 Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc.