Jeff Daniels Was Begged Not To Do ‘Dumb and Dumber,’ But It Didn’t Stop Him

The Big Picture

• Jeff Daniels’ success in
  Dumb and Dumber
  showcased his acting chops and versatility.
• Despite warnings, Daniels took a risk and showcased his talent in the comedy, proving doubters wrong.
• Dumb and Dumber
  launched Jim Carrey’s career but also solidified Jeff Daniels as a versatile actor.

It’s rare to see a comedy film taking over the cinema anymore, but there was a time not so long ago when they were the most profitable genre. 1994 was the year that turned Jim Carrey into a Hollywood icon, with a trio of successful movies released in one calendar year. First came Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, then The Mask, and lastly, and perhaps the best of them all, Dumb and Dumber. It was a mega-hit, making $247 million worldwide on just a $17 million budget, launching Carrey into the stratosphere, with him then playing The Riddler the next year in Batman Forever. Dumb and Dumber would never have worked, however, without Jeff Daniels. We knew what to expect with Carrey as Lloyd Christmas, but Jeff Daniels, who played the equally dumb Harry Dunne, was a more serious actor. He had done lighter fare before, but never a scene that required him to sit on a toilet and act like his insides were falling out like Dumb and Dumber did. When he was offered the role, he was told not to take it, but Daniels had his reasons for saying yes anyway.

Jeff Daniels Had a Successful Acting Career Before ‘Dumb and Dumber’

Jeff Daniels was already an established and well-known actor before Dumb and Dumber. In fact, the Farrelly brothers film wasn’t even his biggest film of 1994. Before that, he starred in Speedm alongside Keanu Reeves, which went on to make $350 million worldwide. Sure, Reeves and Sandra Bullock were the leads, with Daniels playing the more serious cop friend who gets himself killed by Dennis Hopper‘s character, but he was more than a sidekick.

His acting career began in the 70s, where he worked on Broadway, before transitioning to some pretty successful and critically acclaimed films. He was one of the stars of Terms of Endearment, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1984, and he earned two Golden Globe nominations, one for Woody Allen‘s The Purple Rose of Cairo in 1985, and then again the next year for Something Wild with Melanie Griffith. That doesn’t mean he was just an actor seeking rave reviews from critics and award-show recognition. He showed that when he was cast as the lead in the creepy fun horror film Arachnophobia in 1990.

Three Agents Told Jeff Daniels That ‘Dumb and Dumber’ Would End His Career

In 1994 came another opportunity to play the second lead with a big-name Hollywood star, and he’d even get a little bit of a romantic plotline like he’d done many times, but killer spiders had nothing on what awaited him in Dumb and Dumber. So just why did respected, serious actor Jeff Daniels want to do something so risky and against type?

In a 2018 roundtable discussion with The Hollywood Reporter, Daniels sat with fellow actors like Jason Bateman, Michael B. Jordan, and J.K. Simmons, when reporter Lacey Rose brought up how Daniels’ agents told him not to do Dumb and Dumber. Daniels said he was begged not to do the movie. Three agents actually called him the night before he was set to leave to do wardrobe, saying they were going to stop him. They told him he was a serious and important actor, and they were trying to get him to win an Oscar. While they thought Jim Carrey was a comedic genius, in their opinion, working with the high-energy comedian would end Daniels’ career. Jeff Daniels stuck to his guns, telling them, “You know what, I’m bored with the career. I want to change it up.” He wanted to be able to go back and forth from something silly like Dumb and Dumber, and then to serious roles again. He let his agents off the hook, saying, “If this is a mistake, guys, it’s mine.”

Jeff Daniels’ Success In ‘Dumb and Dumber’ Proved How Great of an Actor He Is

Just because he was confident in his ability to succeed with Dumb and Dumber doesn’t mean everyone else was. Even after Jeff Daniels was on set filming with Carrey, he found out his role wasn’t safe. The Farrelly brothers and Jim Carrey may have fought for Daniels, but New Line Cinema wasn’t sold on him. In fact, they wanted someone else to play Harry Dunne. After shooting with Carrey for one day, Daniels’ co-star disappeared, and he was suddenly filming all the scenes that didn’t include him. He knew something was wrong, as he told GQ in 2021, saying:

“I come to find out they’re going to assemble these scenes featuring me and we’re all somewhere going to look at them over the weekend and somebody is on call, somebody who is a comedian is waiting to hear whether he’s going to go do the movie or not.”

Thankfully, Jim Carrey later came up to Jeff Daniels and told him to keep doing what he was doing, and that everyone loved him. When Dumb and Dumber was released in theaters on December 6, 1994, audiences loved him too. We knew what Jim Carrey was capable of, but no one knew what Jeff Daniels could do in such an over-the-top comedy. He ended up being just as good, if arguably not better, than the guy that was becoming the most famous comedic actor on the planet. When you watch the film, Daniels disappears, completely becoming Harry Dunne.

In the roundtable for The Hollywood Reporter, Jason Bateman put it best, saying that Harry Dunne in Dumb and Dumber was a big swing and that you needed the acting chops to make him real. Bateman said, “I think that’s why people say comedy is harder than drama, because you’ve gotta be real at a heightened and exaggerated place.” Jeff Daniels isn’t playing a comedian in Dumb and Dumber, and he’s not an actor trying to be funny. Instead, he’s simply playing the character as it’s written like he was a real person, no different from any other role he’d had. Instead of being a joke, the reaction was, whoa, look how great Jeff Daniels is. Dumb and Dumber didn’t end his career, it only strengthened it. Just ask the Emmys he later won for The Newsroom and Godless.

Dumb and Dumber is available to rent on Amazon in the U.S.

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