Jim Carrey Tried To Quit And Give Up $20Mil After Realizing How Long The Makeup For The Grinch Would Take, So The Studio Brought In A Military Expert On Torture To Get Him Through It
Vulture published an oral history of the Ron Howard/Jim Carrey Grinch movie today, and it's absolutely incredible; apparently that production was WAAAY more of a shitshow that anybody could've imagined.
For starters, how about the fact that Jim Carrey got paid $20 million dollars to play The Grinch in 2000?! I know that's Carrey at his peak, and we're talking about a major Ron Howard Christmas movie production - but I couldn't believe that price tag. That might've been out there before tho. I think the big breaking news from this article is the fact that Jim Carrey tried to give up that $20 million dollars after spending ONE DAY in the makeup chair for this movie. It took eight hours to get fully Grinch'd up, and that sent him into a panic attack spiral when he realized what a process it would be daily. Carrey offered to give all of the money back plus interest, but producer Brian Grazer asked him to simply spend one weekend with a guy who could help him.
Who is this guy, you ask? Oh, only Richard Marcinko - CIA/special ops expert on imprisonment and torture, and founder of Seal Team Six. That's right - you read that correctly. It took the military's best and brightest authority on imprisonment and torture to create a system that allowed Jim Carrey to play The Grinch. This system involved punching himself in the leg, chain-smoking, binge-eating, and more!
Nowadays actors get a lot of credit for throwing themselves into their roles - Austin Butler got lost in 'Elvis', Timothée Chalamet dedicated the last decade to ping pong for 'Marty Supreme', Emma Stone shaved her head for 'Bugonia' - but Jim Carrey should get more credit for the Oscar worthy performance he gave back in 2000. I guess all that time in makeup could've influenced his attitude in Whoville! Although $20mil is a nice consolation prize for putting up with that.
P.S. I was a '98 movie, so I grew up with the live action Grinch being a staple in my house/in school/with friends every year. I've always thought of it as nothing but an all time classic - it's hilarious, it's super visually distinct, it's got major staying power and meme potential, it's even got a timeless Faith Hill song! It was only recently that I found out it was completely panned by critics when it came out and that shocked me. I don't know what more people were looking for outta that movie!
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