I Love You Phillip Morris is based on the true story about a Texas policeman named Steve Russell, and the relationship he falls into with fellow inmate Phillip Morris. Its Sundance premiere attracted a lot of attention because of the on-screen relationship between Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor who play Steve and Phillip, respectively.

Producers Andrew Lazar and Luc Besson, directors Glenn Ficarra and John Renqua, and stars Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor spoke at a press conference at Sundance, and discussed how Besson and Carrey met on the set of Ace Ventura, why the criminal who inspired the story will never see it, and the evolution of gay relationships on screen.

Talk about taking this film out into Hollywood. I mean with Jim Carerey, Jim was attached fairly early I think, weren’t you?

Jim Carrey: Yeah, right away. Yeah.

You eventually got the financing from France, from Luc’s company. Is that deliberate or did you take it to companies in Hollywood?

Andrew Lazar: Well, we always thought it was a… While we think it’s a movie that has a lot of crossover appeal and appeals to a broad audience, we wanted the freedom to make it our way. So once we got Jim and Ewan we were really methodical about who we were going to have finance the movie.

Jim and Luc have a prior relationship, a personal relationship and it just seemed like the right fit. Europa makes a lot of movies, but it’s also due to the fact that Luc is European and I think gets the sense of humor. So that really appealed to us.

Jim: The day I first met Luc was on the set of Ace Ventura when we were doing the very first scene in the movie where I walk down Miami beach banging the box against the buildings and things like that. And I ended up in this film being financed by Luc and shooting on the very same strip of beach. It was kind of interesting.

What were you doing on the set of Ace Ventura, Luc?

Luc: I was swimming. On the beach.

That’s kind of random. And Jim…this character is an extraordinary character obviously.

Jim: Yeah. I loved the fact that I couldn’t figure out whether I loved him or hated him. I couldn’t figure it out from one page to the next. It wasn’t a hate thing, it was like a just a kind of a polarization thing happening.

From one page to the next I was attracted to this character and then I was disturbed by how he was behaving. So I was thinking what a wonderful challenge to try to make this character acceptable to the audience. To make them feel for this character.

It doesn’t feel like a conventional gay movie. It feels like a story about a con artist who happens to be gay.

Jim: Yeah, I don’t think it’s a gay movie. I think it’s a movie about humanity. It’s a movie about - for me and from my perspective, the perspective of my character - it really is about the lengths we go to for acceptance and love.

You know, if you feel like you haven’t been accepted in life, you’ve in fact been rejected; you tend to be a little more extreme in your approach. You know? And I think this character is that. He’s relentless about love and that’s what attracted me.

Did you meet Steven? What’s he like? Is he like Jim Carrey?

John Renqua: No, not at all. He’s a very unassuming guy. He’s a very sort of plain looking guy and you can imagine that it would have been easy for him just to walk out of prison. He’s very soft spoken, but there’s a lot of intelligence underneath his sort of exterior, calm exterior.

And he’s still in lockdown?

John: 23 and half hours a day.

Jim: The wonderful thing though was that Steven McVicker did a lot of interviewing him for me to hear his voice. To kind of get his thoughts. One of the really most touching parts of the thing is seeing this character who is - his personality is so based in being accepted and feeling like he’s kind of cool in the world - talking about how they’re making this movie about his life. And also saying that he’ll never get to see it.

He’s not allowed to see it ever?

Jim: He won’t be allowed to see it, no. Apparently.

Ewan, you met Phillip Morris though I think, didn’t you?

Ewan McGregor: Yeah, I did. I spent a couple of days with him, well, a day and a half with him in Arkansas. In Little Rock, where he lives. It was an interesting opportunity to meet the person you’re going to play. It doesn’t often happen. I’ve played people who have existed and I played one guy who was still alive when I played Nick Leeson, but he was in prison at the time, so I couldn’t meet him.

This time I was able to sit with the person I was about to play and it was very, it was very interesting. You know, it’s not a case of trying to ask lots of questions and answers about particulars in the story. Because, the particulars of our story are in our script. Although it’s all based on true stories, it likes wavers here and there.

It was much more about just seeing what he was like and how he behaved. And what he chose to give away about himself and what he didn’t. You know?

Can I ask the three actors also, going to your agent or your manager or them coming to you with this project; is there still a stigma about playing gay characters? I mean, Jim Carrey, you’re one of the few people who opens movies in the world. Ewan, Rodrigo you’re very famous people…

Ewan: Very. Very, very famous.

Ewan: I don’t think… Well, listen… I think it’s…

Did you have those conversations?

Ewan: No. I mean, when you’re an actor you’re always looking for interesting stories and interesting people to play. And the fact that these characters are gay is what makes them; it’s what makes it interesting. The fact that it’s two men in love or two men in love and then two men in love.

And then the story also with Jim and his wife at the beginning is really… And that she remains… There’s a love story there. All through the film she’s still there. It’s what makes it. It’s what you’re looking for. You know, just interesting characters, be it because they’re gay or what their situation is or whatever. It’s what you should be looking for, I think.

Jim: I think if I were to be honest, there were a few people in my world that were like, “You sure you want to do this?” And that still exists. I said absolutely because sexual proclivity aside it is a story about human beings that’s so compelling and so interesting and so different that it is just about humanity.

There’s nothing but that for me about the story, it was really about that. And it was really about, you know, you love who you love and love is love and that’s it. That’s the bottom line. And if I were to be really honest, there is a homophobic voice that rises up inside me and goes, gee, this is kind of scary, first of all what will people think and second of all, will I like it? Will I like kissing Ewan? And how will that affect me and Jenny?

[laughter].

And those are the honest kind of thoughts that go through your head and then you do your thing.

What did you notice about the gay community’s response to the film, because none of you are gay?

Glenn Ficarra: We were always really sensitive and Jack or what Jim said, it was always just about people. It was never supposed to be a gay movie. And we thought it was novel that it was a film kind that kind of addressed homosexuality without homosexuality being treated as an affliction. It seems like almost every movie.

John: It is not a movie about being gay, it is a love story and that is what was exciting about it. It is like any genre, you have thrillers and action movies and comedies and it is ultimately a love story.

Jim: What if Phillip Morris had been black, then what would the movie have been about? It is relative. Love is love; that is what it is about. It is about getting love and acceptance and approval.

Ewan: It was important to me that none of the humor came out of the fact that there were two men. I was conscious of thinking that when I was reading it and at no point did I feel that it was, otherwise I wouldn’t have wanted to do it, but the joke wasn’t that it was a love story about two men. It is the situation and the lengths that Jim’s character Steve would go to be with Phillip or the ease at which he went on at it, there was that, it was humor, other than that it wouldn’t have been right.

Are Phillip and Steve still in touch?

Ewan: Yes, they write to each other a lot and they write to each other in code. All his letters are checked, so they got a code name, they have got a code name for my name and they got a code name for Jim.

Jim: Is it a gay code?

[laughter].

Ewan: That would be a gay code. A code name for Jim and they are able to just… for Phillip to let him to know what’s happening with the movie and I think they are quite excited.

John: But Phillip is still single and he hasn’t moved on.

Jim: Well that was an interesting thing too yeah. You talk to him and he’d say, no, no, I would never be together, but every once in a while you would see that kind of what if Steven gets out…yeah and he goes hmmm. I don’t know. The door is still open a crack there.

Will Steven never get out?

Andrew: Probably sooner than you think.

Ewan: He is paying off his 45-year sentence at the moment and he hasn’t begun to start working off his life sentence. I don’t know. They are not very happy with him, you know, the Texas Penal Federation or whatever they are called.

When you guys first kissed, there was an audible gasp amongst the audience. But if one of you had a knife and stabbed somebody, there may have been a different reaction. It is audiences have becomes desensitized to that type of behavior.

So, I was just wondering for you guys, what is your philosophy on that, I mean what do you think, because when people do go see the movie, there is just some stigma, like Jim, your fans, are just going to internalize homophobia that maybe people have they don’t want to talk about. How do you think — because you want audience to react, as actors you want people to feel something when they see your performance?

Jim: You know they are all waiting for that.

Ewan: I don’t think — up until last night, I mean the scene where we are dancing and kissing in the prison cell and Clevance being beaten up next door, this shot might have been terribly romantic and lovely. I know I start watching myself and Jim, I just felt this is really lovely, I don’t know.

Jim: It is evolution you know, it is evolution. Who would have thought we would have an African-American President, it is evolution, it is evolving. And I am sure a lot of people in the gay community, it is evolving a little too slowly, but it is evolving and…

It was an audience taboo for a long time. It is the uncomfortability factor.

Jim: Sure, I mean in television, Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore slept in separate beds, I mean you know it is evolution; generally it is about 10 years behind real life.

Jim, as a fellow comedian turned American, you just mentioned we have the first African-American President, how you will be observing the inauguration. And in relation with this film, how do you suppose or hope that that will change the climate for civil rights?

Jim: I hope to be the only celebrity not on that stage during the inauguration, that is what I am gunning for, I am hoping that will happen, but I still could be pressured into it. I am excited about what is happening, I am excited about just the acceptance and opening minds and you know, I don’t know, I am sorry, what was the second part of your question?

In relation with this movie that we are talking about, you just said 10 years behind, how do you hope as Barack Obama taking power and that leading a change of civil rights, how do we hope for that and in relation to gay rights too, how do you suppose that will change?

Jim: I think the change is within you and that is why he is happening, that is why all of it is happening is because the change is occurring within each individual. And I think there is definitely something about stating your case publicly and fighting for certain causes, but really acceptance is about loving yourself.

Somebody yelled out a question last night, what are you doing for the gay community? That was a tough one, because here is a movie that is really about tolerance and love and that is something and really, I just see it as an internal job and I think people are changing internally.

So, when we all learn to love each other or love ourselves, we will love each other, that are the bottom-line. Anything you see in someone is you, screaming at you, you know. It is kind of like the spiritual love of universe I think. It is like just a bunch of mirrors out there and if something bothers me about this guy in the front row, it is me you know.

Do you think a mainstream studio would be reluctant to touch this movie because…?

Ewan: In terms of buying it?

Buying it, yeah. Or making it?

Jim: No.

[laughter].

Andrew Lazar: It is a romantic comedy, what’s wrong with a romantic comedy?

What makes this an independent film?

Andrew Lazar: This man [Luc Besson], financing it, makes it an independent film.

[laughter].

We had a great partner in Luc because he didn’t put any artistic restrictions on us and that is something you wouldn’t get in this video system and we were really lucky to have him.

Jim: In the studios, generally they’re trying to shoot — it’s like a scattergun. They’re trying to hit as many people as possible. And oftentimes, real stories about real people and sensitive issues don’t appeal to a four-quadrant audience. They’re a little bit more sensitive and need to be treated that way. So, this is the place you can take risks.

This is your first independent movie, isn’t it, I think?

Jim: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah.

Luc Besson, what was your involvement?

Luc: The script was good, first. Really, you laugh and you cry. And you’re not bothered by any gay thing, because it’s on paper, so you just see the love story on paper. And then, Jim, when you talk to him, you can tell he’s going to give everything. You can tell that he wants the film and he’s involved, which instantly was a very important point.

I love the work of the two directors, the producer. Then they talk about Ewan, and I love Ewan, too, so it sounds perfect. So we just go.

Will you be doing more independent-film production or financing?

Luc: Yeah. A couple of years ago, I produced this film called The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which is a story about the US and Mexico. So a French guy has to produce that, which is strange. So I would love the American studios to produce some French film that we have, that we don’t want to produce.

[laughter]

Luc: It will be a real help.

[laughter]

Jim: That’s why we had Pepe Le Pew.

[laughter]

Luc: Just a little detail. I know we are talking about the US territory, but a film will be seen by a little 18-year-old boy in New York and then a 35-year-old woman in Korea. The thing is to make the film we all want, and then you will never know how the film will sleep everywhere. You never know. It will change the life of a couple of people all around the world. We don’t know where. It’s fine. The thing is to do it and to give it, and then so we see.

A similar question for Andrew. You read a treatment and three chapters of an unfinished novel, and then you put up your own money to buy the rights or adapting it. So what caused you to be so passionate about this project? What attracted you to it, to even put up your own money?

Andrew: Well, I mean, I loved that character, Steven Russell. I loved not just the cons, everything that’s in the movie. The guys didn’t dramatize the most unusual events in the film, all the escapes. Those he actually did. I love that John just said he had to add 15 percent of the mundane stuff.

But, I fell in love with the love story. I love the idea of a guy being so in love with somebody that he would go to any lengths to be with him. And I think that that’s the universal nature of the movie, because we’ve all been lovesick, and I think that anybody, whether you’re gay or straight, can identify with that. That’s why I put up my own money.

Jim and Ewan, you were saying how you had the moment of fear, because you were wondering what effects would it have. What did happen, in fact? Was it just like we saw in movies so many times, a kiss is just a kiss, like we were saying? Or did it, in fact, have a bit of an impact, exploding feelings that you might have not known before?

[laughter]

Ewan: I’ve played gay characters before, so I’ve kissed men in the past. All of us, I think, on our first day of filming, with your wife and with both of us, on the first day of all our filming, we had scenes where we kissed and held each other. It was kind of just getting on with it right from the word go. But it was never really…

It was strangely unusual. I’ve found that before as well, that it’s not terribly much of a big deal, because your character’s situation is that Philip’s in love with Steve. I’m playing a man who’s in love with Jim. So, as an actor, you’re in there. So, to be kissing the person you love, there’s nothing strange or unusual about that.

Jim: It was never an issue. It never even occurred to us.

Ewan: It was just prickly.

[laughter]

Jim: Yeah. I’ve got to tell you, personally, I have a lot of gay people in my life, in my surroundings, and everyone was so excited. And it was like freedom for a lot of them because, even with them, there was, I’m sure, a feeling like some of them work for me, and a feeling like they had to be a certain way and present themselves in a certain conservative manner, or whatever, around me. And when I started talking to them about this film and pumping them for information… Well, that was an odd choice of words.

Ewan: [laughing] Pumping them for information.

Jim: They got so excited.

Ewan: [laughs]

Jim: I mean, it was such freedom, and there was freedom all around me. It was like someone had let them loose and to be themselves. And our relationships are much closer after that. And it was very liberating for a lot of people, I found, that work with me.

Did you actually film in the prison?

Ewan: Yeah.

Jim: Angola.

You have the luxury at the end of the shooting day to walk away, but is there a different thing that kind of goes through you when you know you have bars around you? Can you walk through a little bit of what you felt like to actually be in prison?

Ewan: I’d never been in a prison before, and I had a kind of idea from movies and whatever stories of what it might be like. But it’s quite shocking, the intensity of what it feels like there. It’s really quite profound.

And from the moment I arrived in the morning, through bars and barbed wire, and then working with all of our extras in the prison sequences, our inmates in Angola. We worked in a couple of prisons, but mainly in Angola, where more than 85% of the men that are in there are in there forever and will never get out. And they all know that.

As a result, the guys we were, there’s like lock down for the dangerous prisoners, but a lot of the prisoners there live in dormitories in a more kind of open way and are quite calm. They were really - it took us a couple of days to realize they were real prisoners. There were extras running through them and playing scenes, but it was all right.

Jim: Yeah. At one point, I asked the warden, “So who are we talking about here? We’ve got like 100 people in this room that we’re in the center of. What are these guys, drug infractions or something?” He goes, “Rapists, murderers.”

Ewan: That’s about it.

Jim: But I guess we were kind of fun. We were something to do, I guess, for them.

Did they talk to you? Were they interested?

Jim: Oh, yeah. I would find myself, between takes, surrounded by 20 guys, just talking and laughing. Again, the one great thing about doing this and being in the position that I am in, there’s something that happens to even the most hardened person that you walk by.

I don’t know what I did, but somehow, I can see the most hardened person face turn into a kid and go, “Hey, man,” or whatever, and they’re like their best selves or something around me. So it’s kind of nice. It was a great atmosphere. It really was.

But, it did make you, when you start thinking about, OK, we’re in here with all the creature comforts and stuff, and air conditioning hoses and things like that, there’s no air conditioning in here and New Orleans is hot. And you start thinking about when we leave, what these guys have to do to survive in here, it is amazing. It is amazing. I was sad that we missed the rodeo. They have a great rodeo apparently.

Glenn and John, there’s that wonderful moment when we first find out that Steven is gay. How much did you think about that moment and the humor of it and introducing the audience to that with humor?

Glenn: Well, very early on in the process of writing this, we became enamored with the idea of conning the audience. Steven is a con man and let’s have him narrate the film and con the audience along the way, and reveal hidden truths.

And so, the big one was the fact that he was gay. So when we wrote that, that’s when we said, “We really want to direct this movie.” And any time we started to get a little downtrodden and feeling a little exhausted, we would read that transition and we’d go, “This is why we’re here,” because we wanted to shock and surprise people.

Also we hoped that it would inoculate the audience. If there was anybody in the audience who was having an “ick” factor, which is unfortunately a reality that would sort of go, “OK. This is what you’re in for.”

[laughter]

Were there any scenes where you guys had to discuss it, all of you, do we really want to put this in? Do we really want to shoot this? I’m not sure. Was there some issue with any of the scenes?

Glenn: I think the only discussions we had were about tone because there was a shifting tone to it.

Jim: Well, I’ll tell you. I fell for the guy who did the transitional scene with me because that was his first acting job, and that was quite something.

John: He is a very brave and very talented actor.

Rodrigo: I can say that one of my professional highlights was the first time I had lunch with Jim and his representation, and they were talking about that transitional scene and did Jim really need to do that scene. And Jim said, “That’s why I’m doing the movie.”

{Laughter]

When we saw Catch Me if You Can, one of the big pickups that the film makers had was will the audience believe the naivety of the time?

And it was interesting, especially with Jim, what the character was going through, there’s a great punch line at the end about being Texas. But the naivety, did it surprise you what this guy was able to get away with? Because it seems like how did these people around not know who this guy was.

Jim: Doesn’t surprise me at all, because I think people kind of half-heartedly do their jobs all the time. They just let things slide. Whatever. They don’t pay attention to the detail, and that’s what someone like Steven prays upon.

I mean, he knows that you’re not going to check the fine print and all of those types of things because you’ve done this so many times, that you just go, “Whatever.” And I think people like that count on those types of slips.

I think it happens all the time. I think we saw it during 9/11, didn’t we? You know, there was a lot of information before that all went down and people just went, “Yeah, OK. Whatever. I’m going to get a coffee. Anybody want a Starbucks?”

Do you guys see the characters as very superficial in a deep way?

[laughter]

Jim: Is that a trick question?

Ewan: That’s what I thought.

Jim: It was supposed to be deep in a superficial way.

Ewan: I’m not sure if it was deep in a superficial way or superficial in a deep way?

I mean like connecting them beyond the trips to Key West and the beautiful houses and the shiny things.

Ewan: Did they what? I’m sorry. What was the question?

What connected your two characters? What was the love for them beyond, “Let’s go to Key West? Let’s have nice houses and cool cars?” What was the deep connection?

Ewan: That they were in love with each other. That they loved his hair. More than anything else. That is well documented. [laughter]

Jim: I thought my character… It was super important for my character, being who he is and the insecurities that he has, for Phillip to feel as if he couldn’t live without me; that he was lost without me, that he was a hopeless person, and I am going to take care of him.

There are a lot of relationships like that, where it is important for one partner to make the other partner believe in their own instability. So all of those things, they were really fun for him, but they were also, “I am taking care of you.”

Ewan: I think there was a line…I think it was cut. I have a line at one point where I say, “Is something going on? And if there is, stop it now.” And Phillip says he doesn’t care about the house, the money, and the jet skis. He just wants them to be together. I think that is right. It was about their love for each other and not their… I think they had a good time though. I think they liked to live it up.

Jim: And ultimately, isn’t that the… We are all in relationships where we don’t know why we are in them. It just seemed like, “This is the one I should dance with. Let’s have as much fun as we can possibly have.”

Is Steve Russell a good guy? Is he just misguided or is he actually…?

Jim: We are all good guys. Everybody is a good guy. Your worst enemy is a good guy.

How do you feel about him being jailed? Do you think he deserves what he got?

Jim: I am kind of fatalistic about life. I believe that people are where they are supposed to be. Honestly, when I heard him speaking, I felt like if he would put that energy that he puts into trying to one up people, figure people out, or get around things into imagining the doors opening, the doors would open, because he is powerful. We are all powerful in that way.

I think he belongs in jail because he broke the law, but I think he got a raw deal as far as the sentencing went. It just so happened that the DA was the sister-in-law of the boss of the company he ripped off. So they made sure he went away for a long time.

He is available to handle your finances…

[laughter]