The Jim Carrey film The Mask was released twenty years ago this week. Really? Has it been that long? Yep, 1994, which seems like just yesterday. It was that time period that saw Jim Carrey catapult from a fairly-well-known comedian to a superstar, with Ace Ventura preceding The Mask and Dumb and Dumber following it.
4. There was a $6,550,000 difference between Carrey’s paycheck for The Mask and Dumb & Dumber. Jim Carrey only took home $450,000 for his role in The Mask, mere peanuts compared to the $7 million dollar paycheck he banked for Dumb & Dumber just a few months later. The way the New Line Cinema was able to snag Carrey for such a cheap deal was because they secured him for the movie before Ace Ventura: Pet Detective came out and annihilated the box office, making $107 million. Nobody in Hollywood — including New Line Cinema — expected Ace Ventura to be a hit and when it was Carrey’s price tag of course skyrocketed.
6. Anna Nicole Smith almost had Cameron Diaz’s role. The Mask was Diaz’s first movie part and it happened purely by chance. During the casting process, the casting directors were looking at the late Anna Nicole Smith for the part of Stanley’s love interest, Tina Carlyle. One of the casting directors noticed Diaz leaving her modeling agency and brought her in for the project, sending Anna Nicole back to her 89 year-old millionaire hubby. The audition process wasn’t a shoo-in for Diaz though, producers made her read for the part 12 times before giving the role to her.
Read about how Carrey made the special effects team’s job easier with his acting skills, and more, in the list at Uproxx.