“Have someone come up and smack you in the head”: Jim Carrey Reveals How He Was Trained by CIA to Endure His Toughest Movie Role That Made Him $20M Salary
Jim Carrey has had quite a successful career in the Hollywood industry due to his approach to physical comedy. Even though his personal life is filled with shattered pieces, he continued to make everyone smile with his talent. His potential to give his all to a role has always been appreciated. The actor once had to go through extreme ends just to deal with a character which was quite uncomfortable for him.
The actor who had a breakthrough with his 1994 ‘s The Mask, gave an exemplary performance while playing his role as Grinch in 2000 How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Stated that this costume of the Grinch made him extremely uncomfortable, he also mentioned that he had to train by the CIA to give his best for the character.
Jim Carrey’s Role in The Grinch Was Agonizing Due to His Costume
The 61-year-old actor, Jim Carrey went through agony because of his costume of the Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Getting into his costume was probably the hardest task for him to do. For him to be prepared, he need to go through a full transformation which involved facial prosthetics which were attacked with a bad glue, getting himself delved into green yak fur with having his eyes covered.
The film director Ron Howard hired Rick Baker as the head makeup artist who was in charge of giving the actor his transformation. He is quite a popular personality in his field who is said to have tried his makeup on him before executing the former. To think, covering head-to-toe with the extreme costume was too much trouble including the time he had to get prepared for The Grinch.
Initially, the whole transformation process used to take took eight and a half hours in total, however, it was cut in half much later. However, his time spent on the whole set was worthwhile as he accumulated an estimated $20 million to play the role. The actor in an appearance on The Graham Norton Show also gave further insights on how he managed to pull off this difficult role.
Jim Carrey Opens Up About How He Pulled Off The Role in How the Grinch Stole Christmas
In a 2014 episode of The Graham Norton Show, the actor opened up about seeking assistance from the CIA to get a hold of himself and manage to pull off the iconic role.
On being asked whether he trained with Navy Seals, he answered,
“I did not train with the Navy Seals. But what that might be referring to is when I did The Grinch I was… literally the makeup was like being buried alive every day.”
He continued about how his whole makeup procedure took a long time then the film producer came up with an incredible idea that was actually executed.
“Then [producer] Brian Grazer came in, being the fix-it man, and came up with a brilliant idea which was to hire a gentleman who is trained to teach CIA operatives how to endure torture. So, that’s how I got through The Grinch.”
The actor also revealed what the CIA told him to endure the torture he was going through at the time.
“‘Eat everything you see. And if you’re freaking out and you start to spiral downward turn the television on, change a pattern, 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.’ So, I was this Grinch sitting [mimicking smoking and smacking himself in the leg].”
Though the actor did a great job in giving his best performance to the role after going through immense trouble, he still feels exhausted thinking about the behind-the-scenes of pulling off the heartless character.
Source: The Graham Norton Show
