“I was stretching myself comedically,” he said.
“I remember getting ready to shoot the toilet scene after my character unknowingly drinks laxative-laden tea.
Jim asked me: ‘Hey man, you okay?’
Jeff Daniels in ‘Dumb and Dumber’.Credit:New Line Cinema
I said: ‘Just cold feet.
This is either the beginning of my career or the end of it.’
He said: ‘Youve gotta go all in man.
Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in ‘Dumb and Dumber’.New Line/Everett
Go all the way!’
He couldnt have been a better cheerleader.”
TheNewsroomstar explained that he screenedDumb and Dumberfor his theater company in Michigan shortly before its wide release.
“Meanwhile 5,000 people fell out of their chairs laughing.”
The audience reception didn’t translate to critical adoration, however.
“The reviews were horrible,” the two-time Emmy winner said.
“I still have a scrapbook of 200 newspapers panning the movie and wishing it never existed.
Then we were the box office No.
1 for six straight weeks.
Thats when it hit me that wed done the impossible.”
New Line/Everett
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“They said: ‘Theres a chance Jim Carrey will wipe you off the screen.’
I said: ‘Maybe but not if I workwithhim.’
And thats what I did.
The actor said that he and Carrey kept each other on their toes.
“We were staying at a Holiday Inn and I started using the shampoo but with no conditioner.
Then Id towel my hair dry and not comb it.
And that was it.
I came in and said: ‘Maybe this is Harrys look?’
After a couple of months, you could almost break my hair off.”
Daniels thinks thatDumb and Dumber and the bathroom scene specifically will go down in history as his best-known work.
“Me on that toilet will be the image on my tombstone,” he said.
