[top photo: Jim Carrey]

CANNES, France, May 19, 2009 (AFP) - US actor Jim Carrey told a Cannes audience Monday he felt "compelled" to take on the role of a gay conman in the jail-break romance "I Love You Phillip Morris".

"I've read only a few scripts in my life I felt I had to absolutely do - 'The Truman Show,' 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', and 'I Love You Phillip Morris,'" Carrey told the Directors' Fortnight, a talent-spotting sidebar to the main Riviera festival, ahead of a screening.

The film tells the true story of Steven Russell, a small-town businessman who breaks with his old life to come out as gay, but also turns to more and more risky conman schemes to feed his flamboyant new lifestyle.

Sent down as a white-collar criminal, Carrey's character meets the love of his life - Phillip Morris, played by Ewan McGregor - in a state penitentiary, but even true love does not stop him falling foul of the law again.

"I was compelled by his insane need for acceptance, his relentlessness when it came to wanting love," the 47-year-old actor said, adding with a grin: "I don't know why they cast me."

"I said to my agent - I have to do this even if I have to offer to do it for free," Carrey said.

"I didn't actually make that offer," he added.

Carrey said he was especially drawn by the story-telling in the script, adapted from a series of articles on the real-life couple by co-writers and first-time directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa.

"It's a very complicated story and they told this tale of two men falling in love with grace, intelligence and humor, without condescending or pandering to antiquated sensibilities."

"They told a really risky little story and actually dared to make it romantic."

The film has already been a hit at Sundance, the US film festival run by Robert Redford that focuses on independent film-makers.

-AFP