{"id":341544,"date":"2025-12-13T00:49:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T00:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/341544\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T00:49:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T00:49:09","slug":"jim-carrey-nearly-quit-grinch-over-makeup-torture-expert-helped-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/341544\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Carrey Nearly Quit Grinch Over Makeup, Torture Expert Helped Him"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJim Carrey<\/a> recently joined Vulture <\/a>for an oral history<\/a> to mark the 25th anniversary of \u201cHow the Grinch Stole Christmas<\/a>,\u201d Ron Howard\u2019s 2000 film adaptation of Dr. Seuss\u2019s 1957 children\u2019s\u00a0book. The movie was a giant box office hit, earning $346 million worldwide and becoming the highest-grossing film of 2000 domestically, but it was also a tortuous experience for Carrey given the grueling transformation process. Carrey has been honest in previous interviews <\/a>about how \u201cexcruciating\u201d it was to play the Grinch under heavy makeup and prosthetics, but he revealed wild new details to Vulture<\/a> about the process.<\/p>\n

\n\tRick Baker, the legendary make-up effects artist who won an Oscar for his work on \u201cHow the Grinch Stole Christmas,\u201d told the publication that the studio originally offered to just have Carrey painted green as the Grinch.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe studio said, \u2018We\u2019re paying Jim $20 million, and we want to see him. Just paint him green,’\u201d Baker said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not\u00a0\u2018How the Green Jim Carrey Stole Christmas.\u2019 It\u2019s\u00a0\u2018How the Grinch Stole Christmas.\u2019 He should look like a fantasy character.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere was a popular movie website at the time, Ain\u2019t It Cool News, and the guy who ran it was a fan of my work, and I contacted him,\u201d Baker continued. \u201cI said, \u2018Listen, Universal wants to paint Jim Carrey green. I feel it\u2019s a major mistake. I did a test on myself of what I think it should look like. Can you somehow say that you saw this test and that Universal is making a major mistake and they don\u2019t know what the fuck they\u2019re talking about?\u2019 And he did. And it was outrageous responses from everybody. \u2018What the hell is wrong with these people at Universal? I don\u2019t want to see green Jim Carrey. I want to see a Grinch!\u2019 Blah, blah, blah. So they finally caved in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCarrey was also adamant about undergoing a full transformation into the character, much to his own detriment.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen it came down to actually designing the Grinch to look like the Grinch, they had to put the tip of my nose on the top of the bridge of the Grinch\u2019s nose,\u201d the comedian explained. \u201cSo, all of the rest of it was covered and I couldn\u2019t breathe through my nose, and they had a real problem trying to get holes in the mask that could allow me to breathe through my nose. Ultimately, I ended up mouth-breathing through the entire movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carrey continued, \u201cThe suit was made of unnervingly itchy yak hair that drove me insane all day long. I had ten-inch-long fingers, so I couldn\u2019t scratch myself or touch my face or do anything. I had teeth that I had to find a way to speak around, and I had full contact lenses that covered the entire eyeball, and I could only see a tiny tunnel in front of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film\u2019s producer, Brian Grazer, revealed to Vulture<\/a> that the team originally offered Carrey the option of using digital special effects to turn his eyes green. But Carrey \u201cdidn\u2019t want to do that. He wanted to have green eyes. They were like Frisbees in his eyes. He was in so much pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was something that I asked for that I can\u2019t blame on anyone but myself,\u201d Carrey admitted. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be careful what you ask for. You don\u2019t think about it when you see an actor do a part that is about excruciating pain or whatever. But that actor has to live in that feeling. They don\u2019t just go home and suddenly stop feeling it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDirector Howard said Carrey \u201cstarted having panic attacks\u201d during the early days of filming because of how uncomfortable the transformation was on his body, adding: \u201cI would see him lying down on the floor in between setups with a brown paper bag. Literally on the floor. He was miserable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCarrey threatened to quit the movie after his first day of filming required eight hours in the makeup chair, with Howard revealing: \u201cHe was ready to give his $20 million back! I mean, he was sincere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA solution came in the form of \u201ca guy who trained the military on enduring imprisonment and torture,\u201d who was brought on to the film\u2019s set to prevent Carrey from quitting the movie and to teach him how to endure the hardship of his Grinch transformation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRichard Marcinko was a gentleman that trained CIA officers and special-ops people how to endure torture,\u201d Carrey said. \u201cHe gave me a litany of things that I could do when I began to spiral. Like punch myself in the leg as hard as I can. Have a friend that I trust and punch him in the arm. Eat everything in sight. Changing patterns in the room. If there\u2019s a TV on when you start to spiral, turn it off and turn the radio on. Smoke cigarettes as much as possible. There are pictures of me as the Grinch sitting in a director\u2019s chair with a long cigarette holder. I had to have the holder, because the yak hair would catch on fire if it got too close.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLater on I found out that the gentleman that trained me to endure the Grinch also founded SEAL Team Six,\u201d Carrey added. \u201cBut what really helped me through the makeup process, which they eventually pulled down to about three hours, was the Bee Gees. I listened through the makeup process to the entire Bee Gees catalogue. Their music is so joyful. I\u2019ve never met Barry Gibb, but I want to thank him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCarrey told ComicBook.com\u00a0<\/a>last year that he would be interested in playing the Grinch again if he was able to do it through motion capture technology and not makeup. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOh, gosh, you know, if we could figure out the Grinch,\u201d Carrey said at the time. \u201cThe thing about it is, on the day, I do that with a ton of makeup and can hardly breathe. It was an extremely excruciating process. The children were in my mind all the time. \u2018It\u2019s for the kids. It\u2019s for the kids. It\u2019s for the kids.\u2019 And now, with motion capture and things like that, I could be free to do other things. Anything is possible in this world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpecial effects makeup artist Kazuhiro Tsuji worked with Baker on applying Carrey\u2019s makeup every day and\u00a0once revealed that he\u00a0checked into therapy<\/a>\u00a0after working with Carrey because the actor was so difficult in the makeup chair.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the makeup trailer he just suddenly stands up and looks in the mirror, and pointing on his chin, he goes, \u2018This color is different from what you did yesterday,\u2019\u201d Tsuji once told\u00a0Vulture<\/a>. \u201cI was using the same color I used yesterday. He says, \u2018Fix it.\u2019 And okay, you know, I \u2018fixed\u2019 it. Every day was like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHead over to Vulture\u2019s website<\/a> to read the full \u201cHow the Grinch Stole Christmas\u201d oral history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jim Carrey recently joined Vulture for an oral history to mark the 25th anniversary of \u201cHow the Grinch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,149150,115688],"class_list":{"0":"post-341544","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-how-the-grinch-stole-christmas","12":"tag-jim-carrey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}