“Pam, I got it!” Veasey recalls him shouting. That day in Veasey’s office, after Carrey explained what was really going on, he started screaming. The exact details matter less than what the tale symbolized. While he was becoming famous, he often told reporters (and Oprah) about how he once speculatively wrote himself a $10 million check “for acting services rendered.” He shared the story so much that Spy magazine even skewered him for repeating it over and over. The movie was Dumb and Dumber, a buddy comedy, by first-time directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly. New Line Cinema had just agreed to shell out $7 million to him to colead a movie. Its success quickly turned Carrey into a coveted movie star, and led him to visit Veasey and pull out the check. The movie they were sprucing up was Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. How ‘Wayne’s World’ Kicked Off a Comedy Renaissance And I vividly remember Jim acting out the scene where he put the plunger on his face.
“And I remember Jim would scream, ‘Junk food time!’ And they’d come in and it was like going to the movie theater. “I would be in my office writing and they would be in their office writing,” Veasey says. During late-night brainstorm sessions, the trio commiserated. At the time, Veasey was also developing a comedy pilot. In the early ’90s, Carrey and writer Steve Oedekerk began revamping the script of what became the former’s first film of the decade. Because he would make the most of everything.” “But then once you understood that, it was a blessing. “You had to get used to Jim’s mind moving faster than you as a writer could write,” she says. Even when he was meant to be in the background, the camera found him. Four years into working with him, Veasey had continually borne witness to Carrey’s almost terrifyingly deep commitment to making people laugh. Because he would make the most of everything.” -Pam Veasey, executive producer of In Living Color But then once you understood that, it was a blessing. “You had to get used to Jim’s mind moving faster than you as a writer could write. Veasey recognized it immediately: years before, Carrey had aspirationally written it out to himself for several million dollars a sort of visualization, done in the hope that putting a physical manifestation of his dream into the world would make it come true. “And I’m like, ‘Jim, just say it.’” At that point, he stood up and pulled a weathered personal check out of his wallet. “I’m thinking, ‘What?’” she recalls after the Wayans incident, she couldn’t take any more bad news. Veasey was petrified that Carrey was going to walk into her office that day and tell her that he too was quitting. But the year before, after objecting to Fox’s meddling, ILC creator Keenen Ivory Wayans had left his own show, leaving it in a state of uncertainty. “I need to talk to you,” Jim Carrey said somberly.īy then, Carrey had spent four-plus seasons blowing audiences away with his uncanny celebrity impressions (Robin Williams, Jay Leno, even Cher) and zany original characters (Fire Marshall Bill). It was early 1994, and, in the midst of trying to shepherd In Living Color through its tumultuous final stretch, the sketch show’s executive producer got a phone call.
Pam Veasey thought that something was seriously wrong.
#ACTRESS IN 28 DAYS LATER MOVIE POSTER SERIES#
Welcome to Part 2 of Comedy in the ’90s, our six-part series documenting this decade-defining boom in all of its sophomoric glory. What followed was a true golden age of Hollywood comedy that saw the arrival of megastars still with us today, a commercial explosion, and then, an eventual splintering that changed the genre forever. Nearly 30 years ago, a handful of smart people set out with one mission: to make some silly movies.
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