Great Scene: “There’s Something About Mary”

Ah, the infamous hair gel scene.

Back in 1998, I was at CAA when my agent pulled me into his office: “You have to see this!”

Grinning wildly, he informs us it’s a rough cut clip from the new movie the Farrelly brothers are working on. He turns on the VCR and we all watch the now famous “hair gel” scene from There’s Something About Mary.

After we all stop laughing, our agent says, “That one scene will make that movie a hit.”

Now that’s a great scene.

Here’s the scripted version:

Here is the movie version of the scene:

What’s interesting is that in the script, there is this scene in between the bathroom and restaurant scenes:

Easy to see why the movie cut directly from “Is that hair gel” to the restaurant revelation of Mary’s “ACE VENTURA-STYLE WAVE up front.”

There are these comments by Cameron Diaz:

American actress Cameron Diaz has revealed that she was not in favor of doing the infamous hair gel scene in There’’s Something About Mary: “I didn’t want to do it because I was so worried it would discredit Mary,” Fox News quoted her as saying. “My agent and manager thought that doing this film was an insane move I was told it would be the end of my career,” Diaz said before the screening.

From a script written by Ed Decter and John J. Strauss, and Peter Farrelly & Bobby Farrelly, There’s Something About Mary was a rarity for two reasons: (1) It was an R-rated comedy that grossed a ton of money ($369M worldwide) and (2) it made more money internationally than domestically. I think the explanation for both is the fact that the humor is largely visual, this scene a case in point.

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