"It's raining men!" So sang the Weather Girls back in the disco era and, indeed, it is raining men here at the Liz Smith office. We've recently taken tea with Bill Paxton, sipped ginger ale with Richard Dean Anderson and chatted on the phone with Jim Carrey.  

Carrey is a genuine phenom of the movie world. He has brought so many millions of dollars into Hollywood coffers that he has reached the scary status where his slightest wish is a command instantly obeyed.  

Yet, on the phone, he seemed quite the normal guy - much more serious than his hyper kinetic film roles, and less given to the frantic shtick he is prone to in TV interviews. Not that Carrey doesn't have his funny side. After being congratulated on his Golden Globe nomination for "The Truman Show," he quipped, "And if I don't win, I'm quitting the business!" Big laugh, then he added: "Make sure you write, '... he said facetiously.'" We agreed that irony and sarcasm are lost arts.  

Carrey said he is honoured to be in the company of his fellow nominees and happy that the corner he has turned dramatically was noticed by the industry. "I am terribly fond of 'The Truman Show,'" he said. "I think it had a fascinating premise, and perhaps the best screenplay - by Andrew Niccol - I've ever read. I was so taken with its theme of insensitivity to privacy. Though I certainly wouldn't want any freedoms taken away, I wish people were more sensitive about those issues." (Here was a good opportunity to ask Jim about his own, much-gossiped-about private life. But I restrained myself. Carrey seemed wary - perhaps understandably so. Later, if we become friendlier, we'll dish a bit.)  

Carrey also said that "The Truman Show" was "an object lesson in making a leap in life, taking a chance, no matter how frightening it is. I've made some dramatic leaps in my life, and though I've agonized over them, nothing I did ever turned out negative. If you live with a situation you know is wrong - a job, a relationship, whatever - the only solution is a big, drastic leap. It's worked for me, anyway."  

Jim said he does not worry about ever being typecast, a prisoner of his marvellous rubber face and brilliant physicality. "I'm really pretty secure," he said. "That's just not something I concern myself over. I know there's more to me than funny faces." (When Jim is completely in repose, he is actually as sexy and handsome as any of Hollywood's current romantic leading men.)  

Carrey - who refers to himself as a "cheerleader" on his sets - admitted to delving deeply into his roles, saying that his recent months filming "Man on the Moon" (about the late comic Andy Kaufman) was particularly involving and unsettling. "It was one of those projects where you find yourself waking up, thinking, 'Wait, who am I today?'" Carrey said he will film the remake of "The Incredible Mr. Limpet" and "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" for Warner Bros. "Though, of course," he added, "nothing is definite in this business. But both projects certainly seem to be moving."  

Rumours that have him playing Jerry Lewis in Martin Scorsese's movie "Dino" are only rumours. "Though I'd love to work with Martin Scorsese, I've never met him, and I don't know anything about this project."  

Carrey described his life as "charmed ... magical. I've always been lucky. And even when I'm in a funk, some movie comes along where I can work out whatever problem I'm having - kind of like therapy. I'd be a greedy pig to ask for more than what I've got."