NEED TO KNOW
David Alan Grier admitted that he passed on roles in Ace Ventura and Seinfeld
Grier worked with Jim Carrey on In Living Color and admitted that Carrey’s creative freedom made Ace Ventura a success
David Alan Grier passed on Ace Ventura: Pet Detective because he wasn’t able to see beyond what he considered to be a “bad script.”
The 69-year-old actor recently joined TODAY with Jenna & Sheinelle to talk about his career, from the projects he did take on to the ones that he didn’t, joking that he “fumbled many bags.”
When 1994’s Ace Ventura was mentioned, Grier admitted that he “passed on it because it was a bad script.”
“What I didn’t see is what Jim [Carey] saw, which was, ‘Can I do anything?’ They said, ‘Yeah,'” Grier explained. “So he had total freedom. He took that script and he reinvented it. And that’s why it was so successful.”
Ironically, Grier and Carey worked together on In Living Color from 1990 to 1994. Ultimately, Carey’s creative and over-the-top take on the role made the movie into a cult classic and a defining comedy of the ’90s.
The cast of ‘In Living Color’
Credit: E J Camp/Fox-Tv/Kobal/Shutterstock
Grier admitted that there was another major project he auditioned for in his early career that he ultimately decided to pass on, only for it to become a huge hit.
“I auditioned for George Costanza. And I read with Jerry [Seinfeld] and it was like, [imitating Seinfeld] ‘George, tell me about your day.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, this man, he can’t act. It’s not funny. This will never be a hit,'” he said of his Seinfeld audition.
“Well. Wrong again! The bag was fumbled!” he jokingly added.
Jason Alexander was ultimately cast as Costanza in the long-running comedy, which ran for 10 seasons, from 1989 to 1998.
While Grier has passed on several great roles, he has also had plenty of success and has been starring on NBC’s St. Denis Medical since 2022.
In fact, sometimes his strong feelings about scripts and the audition process as a whole have helped him in the long run. In 2025, he told Entertainment Weekly that he once got so angry at a delayed audition that he actually got the role.
“They kept me waiting so long that I got so angry; it was over an hour and a half,” Grier recalled during EW’s Awardist Comedy Actors Roundtable. “By the time I went in there, I threw the script down, and they said, ‘Okay, read.’ I did it with such anger.”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
David Alan Grier as Dr. Ron on ‘St. Denis Medical’
Credit: Justin Lubin/NBC via Getty
Grier doesn’t remember what it was for, sharing he believed it was “Miami Vice or something, the TV show.”
He does, however, remember how the audition turned out.
“I got the job,” he said. “It was still a lesson. See, that’s what I need to do every time, not be angry, but go in with intention and, you know, do the work.”
Read the original article on People