Jeff Daniels played Harry Dunne in Dumb and Dumber in 1994, starring alongside Jim Carrey. He recently opened up about the iconic role, admitting that his agents weren’t originally happy about the idea of him doing a comedy when he was being billed as a “serious actor” at the time.
Daniels told Hour Detroit, “’I wanted to do comedy, and my agents tried to talk me out of it. We knew that 12-year-old boys would think it was Citizen Kane, but we weren't prepared for the No. 1 movie for six weeks, I still have the scrapbook of the 200 reviews for Dumb and Dumber, and there's not one good one.”
In a 2019 interview with People, Daniels called the decision a rare time when he didn’t take advice from his agents. He explained, "Their position was, ‘We are trying to turn you into a serious, dramatic actor. You can do a comedy, but you can't do a dumb comedy that's aimed at 12-year-old boys with the guy who just did Ace Ventura.’”
In his interview with Hour Detroit, he also spoke about the famous toilet-clogging scene from the original film. “One of my grandchildren, who’s being potty trained, was shown the toilet scene in Dumb and Dumber,” he said. “We’re hoping that helps.”
Dumb and Dumber received mixed reviews when it was originally released, but it was considered a commercial success, making millions. It has developed a cult following over the years and led to a sequel, Dumb and Dumber To, which was released in 2014.
Daniels, who is now 71, revealed the secret to his creative success was never doing the same thing twice. “I always went and did something completely different,” he said. “I never did the same thing five times in a row and watched it peter out. I always thought a moving target was harder to hit.”
