‘The money -- if I sit and think about it -- is great. But if it's not good work it's not going to be worth anything. I'm glued to my work -- probably in an unhealthy way.'

Of course, like all clowns, he wants to be taken seriously.

Which brings us to more figures. He is being paid just $12 million dollars -- his agent calls the fee ‘low' -- to star in ‘The Truman Show'. It's antecedents are promising. The director is Peter Weir ( ‘Dead Poets Society', ‘Witness') and the producer is the veteran Scott Rudin.

Carrey will appear as a New York insurance adjuster whose life suddenly veers off the tracks. He says it's ‘ something more grounded in reality for me.'

But audiences go to see him for laughs, for movies like ‘Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls' which is a lowbrow comedy which raises its sight when it goes for the jokes about bodily functions. But no matter what the critics make of his cerebral challenged films his audience just gets bigger and bigger. This time he's back with his Hawaiian shirts and jet stream pompadour and trying to make the world safe for animals in a cartoon Africa . It's tens of millions of dollars of total tosh.

Will his fans love a ‘reality' Carrey? Can he move on to drama? ‘ I always want to put a little humour in it. I'm not a James Dean guy but I see myself more as a James Stewart character. There is a certain plan that has to happen.

‘Can't bang them over the head with Shakespeare all of a sudden. People don't like change.

‘A lot of my stuff is dumb but there's smart stuff in there too. I've been dubbed responsible for the dumbing of America .

‘It's not u p to me to educate America . I'm trying to give them relief. ‘'Ace'' makes fun of the leading man and that's what I wanted to do.'

He's also always wanted to be a star. At 33, he's made it. He began trying 16 years ago wearing yellow polyester and appearing at ‘Yuk Yuk's' comedy club in Toronto where he was born the youngest son of an accountant.

When his father Percy who died last year lost his job the family ended up living in tents and working as a cleaning crew. His youngest son saw showbusiness as his way out. He moved on from one set of stalls to another -- but his first stand-up comedy shows went down the toilet.

Now, he's the $20 million dollar man.

‘That's always been my pattern. I try something, totally suck, go away, come back and I totally kill.'

In between there were the comedy clubs, a couple of television and movie tries and marriage in 1987. He was divorced from his wife Melissa this year ( he now lives with actress Lauren Holly who worked with him on ‘Dumb and Dumber'). His former wife revealed another side of the usually publicly smiling tall ‘funniest man in America '. She was going through their divorce when she said:' Jim is an extremely depressive person. I would sit up counselling him through it until 4 or 5 in the morning on many, many nights.'

Her former husband's reaction without explanation is simply:' She's lucky to be out of my life.'

Actress Courtney Cox who co-starred with him in the original ‘Ace' says:' There are two Jims but not a terribly dark one. He has a very serious side. He did have a hard time and he is very sensitive and there's definitely a deep side. But it's that way with all comedians. Jim couldn't be that funny without the pain on the other side'

During one of the difficult ‘painful' periods in 1987 Jim Carrey took a drive up Mulholland Avenue which has spectacular ‘Tinseltown' views of Hollywood . In one of those silly dream moments he wrote a cheque to himself. It was post-dated November 23,1995 .

It was for $10 million dollars.

For once he got his figure wrong.

By then he was the $20 million dollar man.

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