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The actor has opened up in a recent interview about his fan-favourite Christmassy classic adaptation of the Dr Seuss novel.
This comes following Carrey making a decision to U-turn his retirement, which he announced in 2022.
Carrey starred in the 2000 Christmas as the humbugger-y green monster intent on ruining Christmas for Whoville.
He starred alongside Christine Baranski, Jeffrey Tambor, and Taylor Momsen, who played Wendy and many fans are shocked to find out is now a rock and roll star.
When asked by Comicbook.com about which role he would like to return to however, Carrey revealed he was interested in ‘figuring out’ The Grinch – but said that his return would not come without conditions.
He said: “Oh, gosh, you know, if we could figure out the Grinch.
“The 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. ‘It’s for the kids. It’s for the kids. It’s for the kids.’ And now, with motion capture and things like that, I could be free to do other things.
“Anything is possible in this world.”
The estate of Dr Seuss, who make agreements with any studios looking to make films of the classic children’s story, have very specific guidelines on who they allow to play the role.
Supposedly, Seuss’s late widow Audrey Geisel sent a letter laying out the specifics of who could play the grinch.
This included a list of appropriate names, stating that they had to be a big star.
Per Comicbook, Jack Nicholson, Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, and Dustin Hoffman were ‘name-dropped as templates’.
Of course the iconic role eventually went to Carrey.
Carrey did actually say in 2022 he was retiring, stating: “Well, I’m retiring. Yeah, probably. I’m being fairly serious.
“It depends. If the angels bring some sort of script that’s written in gold ink that says to me that it’s going to be really important for people to see, I might continue down the road, but I’m taking a break.
“I really like my quiet life and I really like putting paint on canvas and I really love my spiritual life and I feel like —and this is something you might never hear another celebrity say as long as time exists — I have enough.
“I’ve done enough. I am enough.”
Carrey is set to return from his studio film hiatus after two years this year, appearing in Sonic The Hedgehog 3, returning after appearing in the first two.
He said, after being asked about his ‘gold ink’ comment: “That might’ve been hyperbole, yeah.
“I came back to this universe because I get to play a genius, which is a bit of a stretch. And you know, I bought a lot of stuff and I need the money, frankly.”
It’s not unusual for people outside of Hollywood to consult on films in order to provide accuracy. However, when you think about The Grinch, the next thing which comes to mind probably isn’t the US intelligence agency.
And yet, this is exactly what happened on set of Ron Howard’s adaption of the Dr. Seuss classic.
But how, you ask? Well, Carrey himself has explained exactly how this happened during an interview on The Graham Norton Show.
During the interview Norton asked Carrey about a rumour that he’d previously trained with the navy seals and whether or not it was true. The 62-year-old confirmed that he had never trained with the Navy Seals, but he’d needed help from the CIA in order to get into character of the Grinch.
Literally.
“When I did The Grinch, the make-up was like being buried alive every day,” he explained, adding that it took ‘eight and a half hours’ to get into the famous green get-up.
“The makeup was like being buried alive, every day.”
The extensive prosthetics quickly took a toll on Carrey, with the actor recalling how he put his leg ‘through the wall’ in his trailer during a moment of frustration.
“I told Ron Howard I couldn’t do the movie,” he added.
Grazer decided to call in a favour from a CIA operative who had experience in training agents in how to withstand torture.
Carrey was then taught how to do a series of ‘distraction techniques’ to get through the feeling of being held prisoner in his costume.
“If you’re freaking out and spiralling downward, turn the television on, change a pattern, or have someone you know come up and smack you in the head, punch yourself in the leg, or smoke – smoke as much as you possibly can,” he explained.
“So that’s how I got through the Grinch.”
It’s quite a bizarre mental image to imagine Carrey smoking from a ‘giant cigarette holder’ so the hairy costume wouldn’t go up in flames and punching himself in the leg to get through acting in a children’s film.
The CIA torture methods weren’t the only techniques Carrey used either, with the acting that he also listened to The Bee Gees during his hundreds of times in the make-up chair.
