The Role: Joel Barish Cast Instead: Jim Carrey Looking at Cage's recent output, it's remarkably odd to note that Charlie Kaufmann actually wrote Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind with the Con Air star in mind, and not Jim Carrey. In the end, Cage graciously let Carrey have the role, giving us one of the actor's finest roles to date, and a nice reminder that Carrey can actually act when he applies himself to doing something other than monkeying around. But that's the real history of the character, even if it seems fairly ludicrous in hindsight. Why He Would Have Ruined It... Cage has spent the time since Adaptation came out seemingly attempting to wipe out any suspicions that he might be able to pull off a similar role again. Through bad career choices and some less than committed acting, he has made himself the poster boy for spectacular mediocrity, and with every terrible movie, he is moving further and further away from the place where he might have been good in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Plus, one of the reasons Carrey's performance was so good, was that he drew a lot from his own experiences of heartbreak, and thus gave a personal edge to the character that made it arguably his most enduring performance to date. You just don't get that from Cage, and at that stage of his career, it would have been near-impossible to imagine him playing a neurotic, quirky tender-heart.
