Nearly 30 years after the release of the screwball comedy, Daniels has admitted to USA Today he initially had concerns over the scene that saw his character Harry tussle with a non-flushing toilet after he had suffered a bad bout of tummy troubles. He feared the scene could "end" his career but decided to take the plunge.
"It's one thing to read the toilet scene, but then the day comes, and we're actually going to do the toilet scene," Daniels said of his apprehension. "I told Jim [Carrey], 'This is either the beginning of my career or the end of it.' Jim, who is fearless, told me, 'It's going to be great. You've just got to go all the way with it.'"
He admitted it took "a couple hours of porcelain gymnastics" to get the scene right, explaining that the "close-up when they pop in tight" on his flushed red face was genuine because he "almost passed out" from filming the now-memorable scene in the lavatory while also heeding Carrey's advice to give it his all.
It was a risk, especially since he had agents warning him that the comedic route could be a wrong move, but one that ultimately paid off because the movie became a box office hit, grossing $247 million worldwide, with praise from fans and peers, including Clint Eastwood, who said he could relate to the scene.
"Clint says to me, 'I just saw Dumb and Dumber and you know, the toilet scene? That happened to me,'" Daniels recalled of his conversation with Eastwood at a celebrity golf tournament. "And then he tells a story about dating this woman that he really wanted to impress, but the shellfish hit him the wrong way from lunch."
Daniels said it made him realise that he had done his job and admitted the toilet scene "will probably outlive us," saying, "It will be funny 40 years from now."
Experimental area of the control room for the 12 million volt EN-1 Tandem Van de Graaff Accelerator¹ at the Chalk River Laboratories² of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Ontario, Canada (1959). The EN-1 was produced by HVEC the High Voltage Engineering Corporation³ of Burlington, Massachusetts, founded in 1946 by physicist Robert J. Van de Graaff⁴ and electrical engineer John G. Trump⁵. The company became a leading supplier of Van de Graaff generators for medicine, industrial radiography, and nuclear research.
Looking up from the very bottom of Jupiter. Seen by NASA Cassini