At the press conference for Dumb and Dumber Too, Jeff Daniels noted that the Farrelly Brothers create an environment of family. “They’re always tossing in ‘FOPs’ and ‘FOBs’ (friends of Pete, friends of Bobby) from people back home in Rhode Island and they’d gather up friends to do this scene with Jim Carrey and myself. They’d say, ‘Jim, Jeff, this is my friend who helped me with homework when I was 10’. We’d shake hands and starting shooting. It was like that on the first Dumb and Dumber and it was tenfold on this one.”
When I got to speak with the Farrelly Brothers — directors of not just Dumb and Dumber, but also There’s Something About Mary, Kingpin and Stuck on You — they were treating me like a long lost cousin. Where are you from? Where have you been? What’s your dad up to? I closed my notebook of questions and just conversed with the brothers, trying to work back in Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary questions when there was an opening.
Highlights included some asides about traveling on trains, how Drew Bledsoe’s stage dive from an Everclear show opened up dick jokes at Brett Favre’s expense and also, why the hell were they bringing Harry (Daniels) and Lloyd (Carrey) back?
The scene begins, when I walk in…
Peter Farrelly: Where are you from?
CraveOnline: I’m writing this for CraveOnline.
Peter: No, I mean where are you from originally?
Oh, all over. I mostly grew up in Boise, Idaho.
Bobby Farrelly: I spend a lot of time in Boise. It’s a good town!
Really? A lot of time in Boise? I’ve only been there once in the last thirteen years.
Bobby: Well, we go skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho a bunch.
Peter: It seems like it’s an up-and-coming town.
I left in 2001, but I think it was like 1999 or 1998 that it was chosen by Outside Magazine as “the most livable city in America.”
Bobby: Oh, it survived that? That dooms cities.
Yeah, I moved around a lot, but my both my parents grew up there. Actually [flips through notebook] I had a later aside, like page three, but perhaps you’re giving me a segue —
Bobby: Good, because this is our first one today, we’ll probably just keep asking you questions to get the hang of how this works.
My father played football in high school, into college.
Peter: Really? Where?
A Division II school in Ogden, Utah called Weber State. When I was growing up he was a football coach. So he’s a coaches guy and chooses his team that way. So even though we were in Idaho, and now he’s in Spokane, Washington, he’s been a (New England) Patriots fan because he decided he liked the way Bill Belichick coached —
Bobby: Lucky for him!
Peter: Yeah, we suffered for years.
Oh, come on! Boston is spoiled. You guys have won a championship in every major league sport in the past 10 years.
Peter: Well, there was a period —
There’s always a period —
Bobby: Well, what’s your sports city being from Boise, Idaho?
That’s the thing in the west, it’s slim pickings, you choose from about a thousand miles in each direction. It’s either Seattle or Denver. I chose Seattle back in 1991.
Bobby: Oh yeah, you’ve suffered. I mean congrats on the Super Bowl.
Yeah, that was so much fun. I cracked a rib celebrating.
Bobby: Really?
Yeah. But y’know the Seahawks were terrible for a long time, the Sonics were taken away, the Mariners never won with Griffey, Ichiro or The Big Unit, so it was a long time coming. And I love that team.
