“They didn’t want me to do Dumb & Dumber!” Jeff Daniels tells

“That toilet scene will probably outlive me…”

We often forget that alongside Jim CarreyIt is Jeff Daniels which does Dumb & Dumber. Today an actor in serious and acclaimed series, thanks to The Newsroom and more recently A man, a real man (on Netflix), he played the idiot in the Farelly brothers' crazy comedy, which will celebrate its 30th anniversary in December. A role that he almost refused, however, as he tells USA Today today:

“I had agents, who told me: 'You're a serious actor. This is not the direction you should take. We're going to stop this and remove you from this film.' They didn't want me to do the film. They weren't totally wrong, but I wanted to shake up the codes of comedy.

Not without a certain apprehension, Jeff Daniels persists and signs. He thus plays Harry opposite Lloyd. But one sequence in question still scares him:

“It's one thing to read the bathroom scene (see below). But when the day of filming comes, I realize we're actually going to do the bathroom scene! I say to Jim (Carrey), 'That.' is either the beginning of my career or the end…' Jim, not afraid of anything, said to me: 'It's going to be great. You just have to go for it!' It was a few hours of gymnastics on porcelain… And that close-up when they filmed my face all red… I stayed like that for so long that I almost passed out!”

Neither the film nor the sequence ruined the career of Jeff Daniels. Who even got praise from Clint Eastwood one day: “Clint said to me, 'I just saw Dumb and Dumber and you know, the toilet scene?' This happened to me!' And then he tells me a story about this woman he really wanted to impress, but the seafood at lunch twisted his stomach or something...”

Eventually, Jeff Daniels is proud of Dumb & Dumber and the famous sequence: “In terms of comedic scenes, that toilet scene will probably outlive me. It will still be funny in 40 years.“