Twice-divorced Jim Carrey feels that everyone ultimately benefits from a painful relationship and doesn't believe in 'the fairytale' view of marriage. Steve Pratt reprots.

COMEDIAN Jim Carrey believes he couldn't have done Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind if he hadn't suffered his own fair share of romantic heartache. "Without some of the things I've been through, I wouldn't have understood this script. Unless you have your balls busted, you're just no good to anybody on a script like this," says the star of Bruce Almighty, The Truman Show and The Mask.

Carrey, 43, is twice-divorced with a 16-year-old daughter from his first wife. He also had a short marriage to actress Lauren Holly and was engaged to Bridget Jones star Renee Zellwegger.

He wouldn't want to wipe out all memory of broken relationships, believing that "in retrospect you can look back on something that didn't work out and find some gems in there".

Carrey says: "The story is about getting down to that vein, the deep turbulent current of lost love. I think everybody basically walks the earth with a broken heart to some extent, and we do the best we can around that."

He doesn't think it's a good idea to erase people because we ultimately benefit even from the most painful relationships. "Even when I look back on the ones that brought me to my knees, I can still think, 'well that few months before that end was poetry and heavy and gorgeousness'.

"I believe that if you get over the really tough stuff that takes you to the edge and you still believe in the world at the end of it all, you win. I love the message of this movie because it's about the spirituality of imperfection and accepting that."

The problem, he believes, is the expectation that "forever" places on a relationship. "We've got this lifetime measurement stick that we throw around in relationships and that has to end," he says. "People will be far better off when they don't expect to be given their whole life with someone." Whether a relationship lasts ten months or ten years, we should take what was good out of it and move on. "I might have a successful lifetime love at some point, but there's always a certain feeling of compromise that comes with it. It's a matter of whether you can accept that or not, I guess," he adds.

"So many people expect that fairytale where everyone's going to be together forever. I don't subscribe to that."

Carrey is tight-lipped about his own private life since his break-up with Zellwegger, who co-starred with him on screen in Me, Myself and Irene.

"To talk about it would entail me opening up the most crucial intimacy of my life, and I can't do that," he says.

What he does own up to is that a number of his roles explore personality conflicts. "I have a lot of duality going on in many of my movies and it's all me," he says.

"But I'm a very serious person most of the time. I don't know about anybody else, but I spent my whole childhood either in the living room entertaining and putting on a funny show, or I was in this little closet rigged up to be a spare room, holed up writing poetry.

"So I was always the two sides and with these choices, I guess I get to express both sides. I don't think it's a coincidence because the interesting thing is that the scripts find you."

The A-lister had to forego his usual multi-million dollar fee for the modest-budget Eternal Sunshine. And while the shoot was tough, it was also exhilarating, he says.

"It's like this cavalcade of stars (including Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood and Tom Wilkinson) gathered together for this real down and dirty independent film," he says.

"None of us made any money and we all froze for 17 hours a day in Montauk (New York) in the wintertime in our underwear. And it was really exciting and really fun."

Published: 29/04/2004