The role Jeff Daniels’ agents begged him to turn down: “This will be the end of your career”
Whether on stage or screen, movie or TV show, Jeff Daniels is always capable of delivering a truly knockout dramatic performance.
He’s played some of the greatest characters in all of fiction, some of the most important historical figures, and everyone in between, but none of that matters because all anyone remembers him for is that time he took a massive dump in a broken toilet in Dumb and Dumber.
In 1994, Daniels appeared as the utterly brainless Harry Dunne opposite Jim Carrey’s equally dim Lloyd Christmas in the Farrelly brothers’ cult favourite comedy. After accidentally intercepting a briefcase full of ransom money, the two feckless friends embark on a road trip to return the cash to its ‘rightful owner’. Dunne is easily one of Daniels’ most recognisable and oft-quoted roles, so much so that he reprised it 20 years later in Dumb and Dumber To.
Daniels had done some comedy before, notably as part of Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, but Dumb and Dumber was something entirely different, and a huge risk, something he was all too aware of. Speaking as part of a roundtable discussion organised by The Hollywood Reporter, he remembered that everyone who spoke to him about the film had exactly the same advice.
“There were three agents on the phone the night before I was to fly the next morning to do wardrobe for Dumb and Dumber,” he recalled. “[They] were going, ‘We’re gonna stop you. You’re not going to do this. You’re a serious, important actor. We’re trying to get you to the Oscars; you keep defeating us. Stop doing that… This will be the end of your career.”
Interestingly, it wasn’t the juvenile content of Dumb and Dumber that the agents were worried about, but rather Daniels’ co-star, wherein his representatives were worried that Carrey, who they labelled a comedic genius, was going to make their client look bad. In their words, he was going to “wipe you off the screen”, which is particularly fascinating as Carrey was equally concerned that he wouldn’t be able to hang with someone of Daniels’ calibre.
In the end, the agents’ concerns were for nought as Dumb and Dumber was a monumental hit. It took almost $250million on a budget of just $17m as part of a mad run of box office success Carrey had during this period.
Though some critics at the time didn’t like it, it is now widely regarded as a classic, and it put the Farrellys on the map, proving conclusively that Jeff Daniels could do comedy, even if his dad couldn’t look him in the eye afterwards.
On paper, his agents were probably right to try and stop him from taking this part, but you never get anywhere without taking risks, especially in Hollywood. The star trusted his gut and was majorly rewarded; although, after all these years, he still hasn’t won an Oscar, much less been nominated, so maybe they were right after all.
