The Jim Carrey role every actor in Hollywood turned down: “Hard to tell, but we were told 100”
In the early 1990s, a script with the unusual title A Power Tool is Not a Toy began circulating in Hollywood. Agents and producers read the tale of two dimwitted guys skiing in Aspen, but no one wanted to bankroll the film, as its writer-director duo had no prior credits. Perhaps that’s why, even when production finally gained momentum, every major actor in the business turned down the lead role. It’s estimated that 100 stars said, “No thanks,” before Jim Carrey saved the day—negotiating an eye-watering $7million salary in the process.
The long road to glory for Peter and Bobby Farrelly began with nine long years of trying to get their first movie made. However, even when they wrote a script they believed in, the fact their career amounted to one Seinfeld writing credit made the film a hard sell. Then there was the title: Dumb and Dumber. While they believed it perfectly suited their screenplay, they discovered that agents were reluctant to send the script to their clients because of it.
So, the brothers changed the title to A Power Tool is Not a Toy, and that sounded “hip” enough to finally convince people to read it and send it to actors. Once agents trusted it as a known entity, though, they reverted the title back to Dumb and Dumber. Later, though, they found out that a huge number of actors that they thought had been sent the script hadn’t actually ever laid eyes on it.
“Occasionally, we’ll bump into somebody who will say like, ‘Hey, how come you never offered me a role?'” Peter chuckled. When he would reply, “I offered you Dumb and Dumber,” they’d reveal they never received the script.
“You know, you thought you were being turned down by all the actors, but it’s really the agents just saying, ‘No, he can’t do it, he’s unavailable,'” Peter explained. “It’s rare that they actually give it to them.”
This meant the Farrellys couldn’t be sure how many actors legitimately said “no” to Dumb and Dumber, but they were told the number may have been alarmingly high. “Hard to tell how many actually passed, but we were told 100,” he admitted.
During the two years it took to cast the film, it is known that Martin Short and Steve Martin were both offered the role of Lloyd Christmas, while Rob Lowe and Chris Elliott were offered the co-lead Harry Dunne. It’s rumoured the Farrellys envisioned Nicolas Cage and Gary Oldman in the roles, although it’s unclear in which combination.
Whatever the case, just when the brothers felt like they were never going to get their movie off the ground, one of their producers finally got the script to someone who reacted positively to it. Jim Carrey, then best known as the one white guy in the cast of Black sketch show In Living Colour, loved Dumb and Dumber, and when the Farrellys met with him, “He got it exactly like we got it”.
The brothers didn’t actually know Carrey’s work, though, and the studio wasn’t sure about him either. So, even though they “thought this guy would be perfect,” the story goes that Carrey was lowballed on his first offer by a studio that wasn’t convinced he was worthy of headline star money. Peter claimed the future Truman Show star was offered $350,000 but he wanted $400,000. However, when Ace Ventura: Pet Detective hit cinemas and became a number-one hit for two consecutive weeks, Carrey was put in a much stronger bargaining position.
“They said, ‘Okay, we’ll give you the 400,'” Peter explained. “He said, ‘No, I want 500.’ And then they said, ‘No, you’re not getting 500.’ And another week passed, Ace was number one again. And they said, ‘We’ll give you five.’ ‘No, I want 750.'” Amazingly, the process supposedly went on like this until Carrey signed a deal for $7 million, which was almost half the entire picture’s budget and the most any star had ever been paid for a comedy.
The Farrellys didn’t pay much mind to Carrey negotiating such a huge deal, though. All they cared about was that they would finally get to make their first motion picture – and Carrey’s success playing Lloyd likely made the 100 actors who turned their noses up at the role feel mighty silly.
