"After all, he wrote most of the character, so I don't think anyone else could put the same twist on the role. "There is no one to play Ace but Jim Carrey, " avers Sean Young, who stars as Lt. "But we learned pretty quickly that Jim's instincts were right on the money."Įveryone involved in the film agrees that Carrey brought all the right qualities to the strange but endearing character of Ace Ventura. "We all had to learn to go with that flow, " adds Courteney Cox, who plays Melissa. "Jim has a real turn-it-on, over-the-top personality that he brought to this character and to the set, " says Tom Shadyac. But for these actors, and their director as well, perhaps the biggest challenge was learning to cope with Jim Carrey's outrageous brand of humor. The cast of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" had to deal with the usual problems associated with taking on their roles: "getting into" their characters, fitting the production into their schedules and learning their lines. "I knew if we could give them that in thecharacter of Ace, we'd have something."
"The people who watch me on 'In Living Color' expect something really crazed," Carrey states. The character of Ace went through many changes during this molding process but, through all those changes, Jim Carrey stood firm on one major point. "Now that I think about it, Jim contributed more storm than brains." "The brainstorming sessions were marathons," says Shadyac. The production approached Carrey and, once he committed to the project, he and Shadyac worked to fine-tune the script to Carrey's unique comic talents, which include a gift for mimicry coupled with extraordinary physical flexibility and energy. "After seeing him on 'In Living Color,' I knew there was no one else to play Ace." "The first thing I did when I got the job was tell the folks at Morgan Creek I was fascinated by this guy Jim Carrey," remembers Shadyac.
Jim Carrey, whose memorable television characterizations have included the fiercely grinning pyromaniac Fire Marshall Bill and the husky-voiced female gladiator Vera de Milo, was Shadyac's first and only suggestion for Ace Ventura. They also agreed that those revisions would be determined by the casting for the lead role of Ace Ventura.
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Shadyac and Bernstein agreed that the idea behind the movie was a sound one, but that revisions were in order. But when I walked in and saw this young guy with long, dark hair wearing sunglasses, I knew we were on the right track." "I had never met Tom Shadyac, or even heard of him," recalls Bernstein, who sports shoulder-length dark hair and favors casual clothes and sunglasses, "so I was a bit nervous before my first meeting with him. Robinson, CEO of Morgan Creek, knew it too, and selected ex-standup comedian Tom Shadyac, formerly the youngest writer ever toĬreate routines for legendary comedian Bob Hope, and a writer of telefilms for the Fox Television Network, to direct.
He also knew it would take someone with an equally off-the-wall point of view to get the picture just right. Until now, that is.When writer Jack Bernstein first got the idea for "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective," he knew he had a great concept for an off-the-wall screenplay with unique potential. Since then, Carrey has moved on and the franchise has went largely dormant. Naturally, critics hated Ace Ventura - after all, its lead literally talks out of his butt - but moviegoers found Ace hilarious, turning the comedy into a smash hit.Ĭritics were even more unkind to sequel Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, but Carrey and company got the last laugh, making even more money at the box office. It was a role tailored to Carrey's strengths, and left audiences wanting more of both the character and the actor. With Ace Ventura, Carrey was basically allowed to cut loose, incorporating his skills with wacky facial expressions, slapstick, and vocal manipulation into just about every scene. While his years on FOX sketch comedy show In Living Color helped get Carrey noticed by the masses, it was his turn as the unorthodox animal sleuth that vaulted Carrey to the A-list. While Carrey is regarded as a comedy legend today, and also renowned for his occasional forays into dramatic acting, his ascent to movie stardom can all be traced back to one character: Ace Ventura. Ace Ventura 3 is officially in the works, and here's everything we know so far about the sequel to Jim Carrey's classic pet detective comedies.