Carrey’s casting came after gaining the approval of Theodore Geisel’s widow, Audrey. “I met with Audrey and told her how much Dr. Seuss meant to me growing up and how important it was to pay tribute to him. All of a sudden, I started drawing the Grinch for her across the table, literally on the face. I didn’t have any makeup on. I just gave her one of those, ‘I have to find a way to keep Christmas from coming,'” Carrey recalled of the moment’s choice to channel Boris Karloff and his own teeth-gritting sarcasm.
While versions of the script already existed, Carey’s collaboration informed the rewriting of the character during preparation. seinfeld Authors Alec Berg, Jeff Schaefer, and David Mandel (the brains behind Main Party Scenario).
Schaeffer said of the story’s development, “Jim was going to be in this suit that was extremely attractive because of these green eye contacts that were going to cause him a lot of pain. He says, ‘I’m not going to be able to get better when I’m in this suit.'” With that in mind, they came up with iconic scenes like the Grinch’s to-do list. It’s not Seuss’s creation, but it is now a beloved part of the live-action Christmas movie.
And indeed, physically becoming the Grinch was torture for Carrey, but once actor and renowned FX artist Rick Baker got the look he wanted — even though the studio initially wanted Carrey to be a more recognizable version of himself, the actor was deeply committed to it. Baker got around this problem by leaking details to a writer for Ain’t It Cool News, an influential film site of the time.
“I said, ‘Listen, Universal wants to paint Jim Carrey green. I think it’s a big 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 Universal is making a big mistake and they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about?’ And he did,” Baker said. “And there were outrageous reactions from everybody. ‘What’s wrong with these people at Universal? I don’t want to see a green Jim Carrey. I want to see the Grinch!”
Howard said, “Jim was adamant about the look. Some things made him quite uncomfortable, but he was determined. There were no compromises in the look he would go for.” He and producer Brian Grazer suggested digital green eyes, which Carrey rejected in favor of bulbous contact lenses so he could become a living Seuss creation.
Carey said, “It was something I asked for and I can’t blame anyone but myself for it. You have to be careful what you ask for.” “The first day it took eight hours of makeup. And I went to the trailer and asked Ron and Brian to come in, and I told them I wouldn’t be able to do the movie and I was leaving the movie.”
Of course, Carrey stayed put, and the rest is holiday-movie history. “I appreciated, even tortured [Carrey] I figured, if he didn’t think he gave the performance he wanted, he’d do another take and another take,” Baker said. ”He was brilliant in the film, and I don’t think anyone could have been better than him. “I just wish he was a little easier to deal with.”
Twenty-five years later, Carrey’s Grinch endures. And as Howard told Vulture, “We have momentarily toyed with the perception of the other the grinchI have a take that gives Jim a kick, and people will come back and write it, “None of us are sure we’d really want to go there again,”
He added, “But the one thing I’m able to say to Jim is, ‘You may have to wear a suit, but you don’t have to wear makeup, and definitely not contact lenses.’ Our look will still be exactly the same because we have so many films to work with in makeup that we can solve it digitally.
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