$20 MILLION MAN : THE STAKES ARE HIGHER, THE FILMS DARKER, BUT JIM CARREY'S READY TO STRETCH HIS COMIC RANGE, BEGINNING WITH `THE CABLE GUY'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

Jim Carrey wants to be your friend, and he isn't taking no for an answer.

Disturbing concept when you think about it. Sure, Carrey's manic movie personality has been lots of laughs in ``The Mask,'' ``Dumb and Dumber'' and the ``Ace Ventura'' movies. But they only last a few hours; imagine that tireless trickster in your face all the time, and the horrific potential becomes clear.

That, in fact, is the idea behind Carrey's latest film, ``The Cable Guy,'' which arrives in theaters June 14.

Carrey plays a deranged cable TV installer who insinuates himself into every aspect of strait-laced Matthew Broderick's life. The poor Guy, whose negligent mother let the tube raise him, only wants a friend. But when Broderick's Steven Kovacs rejects his overtures, the Guy turns malevolent like Glenn Close in ``Fatal Attraction.''

Kinda scary. But not so much for audiences as it probably is for movie studio executives - like the ones at Sony who paid Carrey a precedent-setting $20 million for a role that's noticeably darker than the antic clown that has been so profitable in the past.

``It is a little ironic, isn't it,'' Carrey acknowledged with one of the few, hyena-boy laughs he let loose during an afternoon of interviews.

``But I don't think `Cable Guy' is that disturbing. It's a bit of a shift, but there's still a wild character there for people to grab onto. I just think there are more levels, there's more going on. It's not fifth gear all the time.

``It's funny how much worry about whether (kids) are going to be able to grasp something goes into even the creation of things these days,'' said Carrey, whose main audience is perceived to be teen-age or younger.

``Ultimately, though, I think everybody likes to see somebody who's in a worse emotional spot than they are. That's a lot of what comedy is.''

Carrey comes off remarkably rational in real life, not like the caffeinated human Gumby he has made his fortune impersonating. He's more relaxed than, say, Robin Williams; gag lines are judiciously portioned out and mugging is kept to an absolute minimum. He answers most questions straightforwardly - perhaps saving the schtick for the big bucks it's worth.

(In two years, Carrey's price went from under $1 million for the first ``Ace Ventura'' to the $7 million range for ``Dumber'' and ``Batman Forever'' and hit $20 million apiece for this one and ``Liar, Liar,'' scheduled for year's end).

``I don't know if I'm totally serious, but yeah, I'm a normal human being,'' Carrey said, convincingly. ``I mean, I'd go out of my mind if I tried to pump myself up for entertaining the crew as well as the camera. I've always found people who have to be `on' all the time sad. I know a lot of comedians, and I know the ones who can actually sit in a room and have a human conversation and the ones that are just waiting for their moment to chime in with something funny. They want to be part of it, but they're really not interested in anything anybody has to say.''

If there's a downside to the massive success and international fame that have come Carrey's way in the last two years, it's the fear that he could turn into one of those self-absorbed types. He's already discovered, to his philosophical but still evident distress, that five hit movies in a row can play hell on a star's personal life. Carrey divorced his wife of seven years, Melissa Womer, in late 1994, and a relationship with actress Lauren Holly recently hit the rocks.

``It's pretty much impossible to build a nest with me right now,'' he confessed, sounding both resigned and regretful about it. But Carrey seems even more concerned about the public costs of superstardom.

``I'd have to say that I'm very isolated,'' he confessed. ``I have as normal a life, I think, as a person like me could have. I have good friends, all my business associates have been with me from the beginning and are honest people who tell me when I'm full of s---.

``But I don't know how I'm going to turn out. I don't know how all of this is going to affect me, ultimately. I feel like, at some point, I could probably disappear and learn something. I'm afraid, I guess, that I won't be able to watch anymore. Everything I do comes from watching and observing, and I'm concerned that I won't be able to be the watcher because I'm the watched.''

Don't cry for Carrey, though; fame has its compensations. For example, he recently realized a long-held dream when he hosted the season finale of ``Saturday Night Live.'' ``It's a dragon that I've never slain,'' said Carrey, who once auditioned for the sketch show's Not Ready for Prime Time Players. ``I've always been on the outskirts of that Second City/Groundlings world, but never got on. Lorne (Michaels, `SNL's' producer) said the same thing; he felt like he had something to do with so many comedy talents, but he can't take any credit at all for me.''

And even when Carrey lowers his asking price for ``artistic'' considerations - as he has for ``The Truman Show,'' a film directed by Peter Weir (``Witness'') that he'll make after ``Liar'' - it's to a not-exactly-starvation salary of $12 million.

Hard to be too angst-ridden with that going on in your life. But Carrey insists that, as he moves beyond the demented dervish stage of his career into roles with greater dimension, he's got to be in touch with his doubts and fears more than ever before.

``I always try to approach the role as if it were me,'' he said. ``In `Cable Guy's' case it was, `What if my parents had never been there for me? What would I think? How would I be?' Well, I wouldn't like myself, would I, because obviously I wasn't worth hanging around. That's where all the need comes from: the need to prove something, the need to be the smartest one about cable, the need to control or take over.

``But I'm nowhere near this guy,'' Carrey quickly added. ``I guess, on a different level, there are elements of need and self-deprecation, just not liking parts of oneself.''

It continues. ``In my next movie, `Liar, Liar,' I play a divorce lawyer who's full of it. But he's also ignored his son from a broken marriage. Although I spend a lot of time with my daughter, Jane, no matter how hard you try to be a good father, if it's a broken marriage you always feel guilty. So that, for me, is going to be something easy to relate to. In my head, I've gone there.''

Carrey's certainly had his trying stretches of life, and they weren't just in his head. Raised in a suburb of Toronto, he essentially became homeless as a teen-ager when his accountant father was suddenly laid off from his job. The whole family lived in a camper, and Carrey and his siblings had to join their parents at factory jobs to make frayed ends meet.

By age 17, though, Carrey had established himself on the Canadian comedy club circuit. After earning enough to get his family into a real home, he headed to Hollywood in 1981.

Although he rarely wanted for work after that - besides club dates, there was a short-lived sitcom, ``The Duck Factory,'' and small roles in the films ``Once Bitten,'' ``Peggy Sue Got Married,'' ``The Dead Pool'' and ``Earth Girls Are Easy'' - Carrey didn't make a big impression until he joined the Fox Network skitcom ``In Living Color's'' ensemble in 1990.

Playing such outrageous characters as female bodybuilder Vera de Milo and pyromaniacal Fire Marshal Bill on that show, Carrey developed a strong following based on an unusual combination of extreme physicality, childish hypertension and sophisticated irreverence. When he headlined ``Ace Ventura, Pet Detective'' in the winter of 1994, those fans came out in droves.

And they've been coming back ever since. But now the 34-year-old Carrey is testing their loyalty with marginally darker, incrementally more demanding movie material - something his backers, understandably, wish he wasn't doing.

But that's one thing Carrey isn't worried about at all. Even in the unlikely event that it all comes crashing down, the comic lunatic has a reasoned, realistic perspective some of Hollywood's more serious superstars could use a dose of.

``I've already had so much success, I could quit now and say, `Thanks very much, you guys have been more than nice to me,' '' Carrey quipped. ``But I really would like to keep working and, hopefully, growing and challenging myself. With luck, the audience will grow along with me, or else I'll lose a few and gain a few in a new area.

``That's OK with me, too.''

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6 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) JIM CARREY

Just your average $2 0 million `Guy'

(2--3--Color) Jim Carrey's career hit the Hollywood stratosphere in ``Ace Ventura, Pet Detective,'' above. Box office: $72 million. The sequel: $108 million. He broke new ground in rubber-faced mugging in ``The Mask,'' right. Box office: $120 million.

(4--5--Color) Carrey sported a bowl haircut and let a chipped tooth show in ``Dumb and Dumber,'' left. Box office: $127 million. He stole the show as the Riddler in ``Batman Forever,'' above. Box office: $184 million.

(6--Color) ``It's a bit of a shift, but there's still a wild character there for people to grab onto,'' Carrey says of his role in ``The Cable Guy.''