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Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind is the extraordinary new film from director Michel Gondry Human Nature and from the pen of Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Being John Malkovich.

Jim Carrey stars as 'Joel', a man who is shocked to discover that his girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) has had her memories of their relationship erased from her mind.

Unable to come to terms with losing her, Joel contacts the inventor of the erasure process, Dr Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) and asks for Clementine to be removed from his own memory.

However as Joel's memories of Clementine are in the process of being erased, Joel rediscovers his love for his former girlfriend. From deep within the recesses of his brain, Joel attempts to run away with Clementine and escape the procedure. As Dr Mierzwiak and his crew (Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood) chase him through the maze of his own memories, Joel can't get Clementine out of his head.

Definitely one of Jim Carrey's finest dramatic performances to date, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind is an amazing film with a great cast that includes Kate Winslet (Titanic), Kirsten Dunst (Spider-Man 2), Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings: Return Of The King), Mark Ruffalo (In The Cut) and Tom Wilkinson (In The Bedroom).

A remarkable take on the romance genre, and a brilliant fusion of two amazing minds - Gondry and Kaufman - there has never been anything quite like Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. From start to finish, this film will capture your imagination and take you on an unforgettable journey that is both surreal and touching at the same time.

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Jim Carrey became famous for comedy hits such as: Ace Ventura Pet Detective, The Mask, Dumb and Dumber and Bruce Almighty, but he's also won back-to-back Golden Globes for his dramatic performances in Man on the Moon and The Truman Show. In his latest film, 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', directed by French music video legend Michel Gondry from a script by Charlie (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) Kaufman, the 42-year-old Canadian movie star combines both sides with a dramatic performance in a dark comedy about love lost and found. Carrey stars as Joel Barish, an introverted New Yorker who is devastated to discover he has been 'erased' from the mind of his girlfriend Clementine Kate Winslet.

What attracted you to this film?

“ I immediately identified with it, as I think most people will. The content is so universal; that everybody has some painful memory of a relationship they'd love to erase but probably shouldn't because it is a valuable thing to love anybody for any period of time. I thought it was very original and it was saying ultimately that we love who we love and we can't help ourselves. The script also hit such a nerve with the idea of playing somebody who has been erased. Everyone has that fear that someone has gotten over you and you're still hooked, and it was just such an original script I had to jump in. ”

What can you tell us about your character Joel?

“ I play a guy who thinks he has found the love of his life, somebody who expresses a side of him that he wishes he could express because he is a very withdrawn character but you can tell by his writings and drawings that some very wild stuff is going on inside him. And along comes Clementine, who is the outward manifestation of that and who is everything he is not. He falls in love with her, they have a very odd relationship and it's very painful and she has him erased on a whim. He finds out and is crushed and decides to do it as well but half-way through the process, because you go from the most contemporary memory to the oldest memory, eventually you get to the part where you realise you loved each other and there are beautiful memories he wants to keep. So it becomes a chase, because he starts to try and hide her in other memories to preserve her in his mind. ”

Could you relate to Joel?

“ It was an odd thing because at the time I got the script, I was kind of bummed out about something and Michel was like, "what are we going to do; when you get around to shooting the movie you'll be happy and over it!" and I said, "no, I'm sure I can drum it up!" and that's what I had to do, because I took this script and went to New York and had to open up all those wounds again. ”

Were you a fan of the writer, Charlie Kaufman?

“ He's an incredible human being, very sensitive and I think he is Joel to a certain extent. I think everybody in a Charlie Kaufman movie plays Charlie Kaufman to some degree but what a complete original. I feel really honoured to be part of his story because I think he, more than anybody, in the last few decades is the most original thing that has come along. When I first read the script, I also knew it was the most accessible film that Charlie Kaufman has written. It's still wild, but it has that sci-fi element to it and is a real love story at the same time. It's not a 'honey, come back' love story; it's a 'well, it's going to be bad sometimes but I love you anyway' story. And that's real. ”

What were the other elements to this film that attracted you?

“ There are so many talents from different areas going at this film at the same time. It is a dream cast and I kept looking at it thinking, "why do these people want to work with me?"' There is Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson and they are all tremendous. And Michel Gondry, the director, is an element that really drew me to this project. There is the intellectual side of Charlie Kaufman and combine that with the completely artistic, whimsical, crazed visual side of Michel Gondry, and his ability to experiment, and you have an incredible combination. ”

Do you think you are attracted to roles that explore personality conflicts, for example, 'The Mask', 'Dumb and Dumber' and now this film?

“ I have a lot of duality going on in many of my movies and it's all me. 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 is a coincidence because the interesting thing is that the scripts find you. ”

What did you think of Michel leaving the camera on all the time?

“ It was fantastic; being able to go, "here is a 75 watt bulb and you're going to run around the room, take your clothes off and come out the other side and be a different person". Whatever it is, he makes it all happen in the camera without any special effects. He is a total original so I was excited to work with him because I'd been a fan since I saw his first film, 'Human Nature'. ”

What kind of shoot was it?

“ It was fun but it was hard. It was seventeen-hour-plus days in Montauk on the beach in the dead of winter with your feet in the ocean or half-naked in a bed! I'd also never shot a film in New York and that was a challenge too because you can get all the permits you want, but you can't stop the city and people have the right to walk wherever they want to work and the paparazzi are all over you all the time. When you do get your one shot at doing a scene, you have to do it well and jump into it quickly. But it was an amazing place to shoot because any direction you look at New York City is alive with angles and fantastic shapes and the people are amazing - half the people slam into the movie and they're just great natural actors so it contributes to the feel of the movie. ”

How was working with Kate Winslet?

“ She was so incredible and sweet. She was really cool with me and we had a lot of chemistry, which came off well for the film. She is a complete professional, subtle and beautiful in her work and she made herself this great character. It's weird not to think of her as Clementine to me, because she had orange and blue hair and that is always the image of her I'll have. We were both in the dark sometimes because it is such a complex script to keep track of and we would constantly go off and ask each other, "what are we doing?" And then we'd look at each other and go, "I think maybe this is not supposed to make sense here." ”

Were you able to draw on your own experiences to play this role?

“ I wouldn't have been able to do this movie without some of the things I've been through because I wouldn't have understood this script. Unless you have your balls busted, you are just no good to anybody on a script like this. This 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. I also loved that when they were breaking up, she told him he was boring and he was boring when she met him and she knew it. But when she hates him it's a horrible thing and I think we can all relate to that feeling. That weird laugh that your girlfriend has that you think is cute - six months down the road you're like, "you're driving me crazy!" and you're apologising to everyone around you for her weird laugh! ”

What do you think about being able to erase someone?

“ I think in the moment it seems like a great idea. There have been a couple of Valentine's days where I would have been doing this to forget about someone, but I don't think it's a good idea because I think you ultimately benefit from the most painful relationships. And 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 heaven 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. ”

Jim Carrey Filmography

Kate Winslet's professional and personal life could not be on a better track currently. She is earning some of the best reviews of her career for her role as crazy-haired romantic Clementine Kruczynski opposite Jim Carrey in 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'. It's an ingenious film one needs to see twice to fully appreciate but hinges on whether it's possible to erase all memories of a relationship. Written by the brilliant and occasionally twisted mind of Being John Malkovich/Adaptation writer Charlie Kaufman, 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' has enjoyed the best reviews of any film in the US this year.

How are you managing to juggle motherhood and your very hot current movie career?

“ I frankly would like to ask the majority of mothers who have 9 to 5 jobs how the hell they do it because I've never had to do that. Admittedly when I'm working it's on a film set and I'm up at 5.30am and gone from the house at 6am and more often than not you get back around dinner/bath-time. But honestly, the way I do it is I don't do it that much. From the outside looking in, when a movie comes out you imagine that person has been working back to back. I've got two films coming out this year, the other is 'Neverland' which I did last year and, from the outside looking in, it seems 'she's been so busy' but in actual fact that's not the case and I really stick to this thing of doing one film a year. Maybe two if the shooting schedule is very short. ”

Do you ever feel that you don't work enough?

“ Absolutely not. I love it because when I go to work I'm really excited about it and it means I have lots of time to prepare and to chill out afterwards. It's so exhausting and incredibly hard work. You don't just turn up on day one and it all comes to you. I always prepare myself as well as I possibly can which takes up time and energy. I'm so lucky that I can choose not to do it all the time and lucky to have the choice in terms of the roles I play. So that makes me appreciate it all the more. ”

Was making 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' especially exhausting?

“ I swear to God some days I felt like John Cleese. I'd be like, "just stop moving". You know when you watch him in Fawlty Towers and you just want to grab him and force him to keep his feet on the ground and stay still. And Clementine was a little like that. She was exhausting, maybe because she has so many layers and emotional levels that she hits at different points in the film but also because of the unorthodox way in which the story is told. You very much had to know what you were doing every single day and sometimes we'd have really long pages of dialogue, a scene of 11 or 12 pages long which is virtually unheard of in a movie script. That's a lot of hard work. You have to learn all those lines way in advance so that when you get to the take you don't blow one because you've forgotten what your next line is. So it was quite exhausting but so much fun I was happy to be that tired. ”

Your director Michel Gondry says that, like Clementine, you're headstrong, passionate and unpredictable. Are you?

“ Yep. I am most definitely passionate and headstrong. My dad loves telling us stories over and over again about what our childbirth experiences were like for him and my mother and apparently I came shooting out, cord round the neck, screaming my head off, ready for action. So I guess I'm both of those things. And I suppose I'm a bit unpredictable too. I don't like planning too much. Normally actors who are asked what they're doing next say, "Well next I'm doing so and so and after that I'm doing blah". I'm just not like that. I don't know what's going to be happening in my life in a year's time and that always for me comes first. I like to keep it like that. It's fun and does make life more exciting. ”

Clementine's kind of punky; dying her hair a different colour every day. Did you ever go through that kind of phase?

“ Oh yeah. I mean, who didn't go through that, you know? It wasn't necessarily a punk phase but I definitely went through periods of wanting to shave my head or dye my hair. I never shaved my head but I definitely mixed my own packets of peroxide and put big fat streaks of blonde in my hair. And you experiment with crazy clothes when you are younger. It's all part of kind of self-exploration and expression. And to me that's what Clementine had that was so much fun. It was almost like she was going through her teenage rebellion ten years too late, so it was great to sort of re-visit a bit of that for me. ”

Did you improvise much on set?

“ We did a lot of improvising in rehearsal. Charlie Kaufman, the writer, and Michel were in the rehearsal room with Jim and I and they'd often send us off on these crazy improvisational tangents - "Do an improv that Clementine is moving into Joel's apartment and see where that takes you". And Charlie would say, "I love that thought" or "I love that line" and he'd go off and write a new scene. There was a bit of ad-libbing but hardly any because the brilliant thing about Charlie as a writer is that you just feel as if those are simply the words these people are saying. Every single "I...er...I don't know (pause). F***. (She sits down. sighs....)" everything kind of made sense. To say that it came naturally is almost the wrong expression but it felt really natural because it was just brilliantly crafted and that was a real luxury for us to have. ”

You have great chemistry with Jim Carrey and it seems you have had innate chemistry with all your leading men. Is there anything you attribute that to?

“ I don't know if it's a skill but I have been really lucky. I've always got on with every actor I've had to work opposite. I just always try and be as accepting of that person as I possibly can and remain non-judgmental about their process because every actor works in a different way. I would never criticise an actor for the way they create that performance. Jim and I just really got on. I was amazed at how normal he is and he's very, very professional and very funny too and a brilliant impressionist. He did a Jack Nicholson impersonation that was so uncanny. ”

What about the premise of rubbing out memories of a past relationship? Can you relate to that?

“ I can relate to it in the sense that some people would wish to do that but I just never would. We've all been through good and bad times in our lives and just for me personally I've always felt that those things have made me stronger, even if it was just being bullied as a kid at school. I'm kind of grateful for all those things even though that sounds a bit twisted. I just wouldn't erase anything. ”

Do you still feel overshadowed by Titanic in any sense?

“ I'm now able to be far more grateful than ever for the Titanic experience. I'd love for my daughter Mia to be able to see it but she's still too young. I heard that one of her little friends who's five was watching it at Christmas. And apparently she said, "Look, Mia's Mummy is hanging off the boat". To me, that is a great thing. I just loved the fact that I was Mia's Mummy and she wasn't remotely interested in the character names or anything like that. It was just Mia's Mummy playing dress-up and pretending to be somebody else. ”

Kate Winslet Filmography

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

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