For The Grinch, Jim Carrey received an unexpected helping hand from… the CIA
The actor had difficulty supporting the imposing costume of the character of Dr. Seuss, to be found this evening on television.
Last week of classes before Christmas, the holidays and celebrations are approaching… and Gulli is already thinking of those who want to immerse themselves in the magic of this end-of-year Peruid by rebroadcasting The Grinch of Ron Howard.
In the shoes of the greenish bogeyman who wishes to steal the spirit of the Christmas party, invented by Dr. Seuss, Jim Carrey experienced one of its biggest successes on the big screen in the United States, since this comedy crossed 350 million dollars in revenue in 2000. Première wrote at the time: “If this adaptation by Ron Howard does not do complete justice to its author (…), it is no less lively, often funny and incredibly fertile in absurd settings“.
The Grinch: Jim Carrey’s makeup artist ended up in therapy
Although taking up the universe and characters of Dr. Seuss’s book, The Grinch is also above all a true Jim Carrey movie. Favorite for the role Eddie Murphy but also to Jack Nicholson, Jim Carrey finds in this children’s story an ideal vehicle to highlight his elastic body and his innate taste for grimaces of all kinds. He even received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance as the hairy, green skin of the Grinch.
This skin was, however, partly the worst enemy of Jim Carrey on the set since he had to undergo endless makeup sessions for the sake of the role, makeup sessions supervised by none other than Rick Bakerlegendary makeup artist since it was he who was the head makeup artist of Star Wars: A New Hopeof Werewolf of London or even Men in Black.
For his first day of filming, Jim Carrey spent no less than eight and a half hours in the makeup room to find the settings that would best honor her facial elasticity. On the set of host Graham Norton, Jim Carrey remembered this particularly painful moment: “It was like feeling buried alive every day. I went to my trailer and told Ron Howard I couldn’t do the movie“.
The actor therefore almost abandoned the role before the production finally found a rather original solution to resolve the problem: “Brian Grazer came along and proposed the brilliant idea of hiring a specialist to train the CIA staff to endure torture“. In other words, a face that you would absolutely not expect on the set of a mainstream film for the Christmas holidays…
The individual in question therefore caused Jim Carrey to endure his costume during the few hundred days during which he had to slip into the skin of the Grinch, each time with slightly incongruous advice: “He was telling me : ‘eat everything you see. If you start to panic and spiral, turn on the TV, ask someone you know to punch you in the back of the head, punch yourself in the legs and smoke, smoke as much as you can.’ So there I was on set, smoking like a fireman with a cigarette holder so the yak hairs wouldn’t catch fire!“
So this is how Jim Carrey was able to complete the filming of The Grinch, which he probably had no reason to complain about given the success of the film and the resulting Golden Globe nomination. For his work on the film, Rick Baker received his ninth Oscar nomination and finally the sixth of his seven Oscars for best makeup, a Hollywood record.
The history of Grinch : In the small village of Whoville, people live to party. With a carefree temperament and cheerful mood, they increase their activity as December 24 approaches. Because everyone in Whoville loves Christmas, except the Grinch! This green, hairy creature lives as a recluse in a cave at the top of Mount Crumpit with his dog, Max. Little Cindy Lou, a little girl with a pure heart, wants to know more about him and decides to go visit him. The Grinch does everything to terrify her but her concern touches him and he agrees to go back down to Whoville with her.
The 7 Lives of the Grinch
