There’s dumb and then there’s dumber. But for Jeff Daniels, he had a hard time being either when he was auditioning for the Farrelly Brothers’ first feature, Dumb and Dumber.
Appearing on the Best People podcast this week, host Nicole Wallace asked Jeff Daniels what his most “out of body” experience had been in the movie business, to which he revealed, after little consideration, his surprise pick: Dumb and Dumber. Thankfully he had someone else in the room who knew exactly what it meant to be dumb. “I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t know how to be that dumb. I didn’t. I remember I got it and I had done the screen test with Jim [Carrey]…There were a few of us that were in the finals…Jim just kind of started a scene and he kind of screwed his hair up. So I go, ‘I gotta match that.’”
After both Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey were cast as Harry and Lloyd in Dumb and Dumber (hey, which is which, anyway?), shooting commenced in Colorado, where Daniels found himself in yet another predicament in channeling complete and utter stupidity. Then it clicked: “He has an IQ of 8. Not seven, not nine – eight. And that made perfect sense to me. And then I became the puppy on the leash. Jim would lead.”
Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey would reunite with the Farrelly Brothers a full 20 years later when they reprised their roles for Dumb and Dumber To, which we assume pushed Daniels to play a man with an IQ of 4. Despite the poor reception, Peter Farrelly has said he would be down for another sequel, compiling jokes he thinks would fit well coming from Harry and Lloyd.
Dumb and Dumber would go on to gross $127.3 million domestically, which would make it the top earner of Carrey’s trio of 1994 releases, besting The Mask and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. And Jeff Daniels had himself a pretty good year, too, as Speed was one of the highest-grossing movies as well.
What is your favorite scene from Dumb and Dumber? What makes the movie work 30+ years later?
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