Ron Howard’s live-action How the Grinch Stole Christmas reaches its 25-year milestone with a celebration of the iconic Seuss storybook character. In an oral history published by Vulture, Howard and Jim Carrey, alongside the Universal Pictures production creative team, revealed the Mt. Krumpit-sized challenges they faced to be true to the Mean One’s spirit.
Carrey’s casting came after he earned 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 homage to that. Suddenly, I ended up doing the Grinch for her across the table, actually doing the face. I didn’t have any makeup on. I just gave her one of those, ‘I musst find a way to stop Christmas from coming,’” Carrey recalled the in-the-moment choice to channel Boris Karloff and his own gritted-teeth sneer.
While there were versions of the script already in place, Carrey’s take on the character informed rewrites during preparation in collaboration with Seinfeld writers Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer, and David Mandel (the minds behind the key party scene).
Schaffer said of the story development, “Jim was going to be in this suit that was super hot with these green eye contacts that were going to cause him so much pain. He’s like, ‘I’m not going to be able to improvise when I’m in this suit.’” With that in mind, they came up with iconic scenes like the Grinch’s to-do list. That’s not a Seuss creation, but it’s now a beloved part of the live-action Christmas film.
And indeed, physically becoming the Grinch was torture for Carrey, but something the actor was deeply committed to once he and famed FX artist Rick Baker found the look they wanted—even if the studio initially wanted Carrey to be a more recognizable version of himself. Baker got around that by leaking the details to a writer for Ain’t It Cool News, an influential movie site at the time.
“I said, ‘Listen, Universal wants to paint Jim Carrey green. I feel it’s a major 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 that Universal is making a major mistake and they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about?’ And he did,” Baker said. “And it was outrageous responses from everybody. ‘What the hell is wrong with these people at Universal? I don’t want to see green Jim Carrey. I want to see a Grinch!’”
Howard added, “Jim was insistent on the look. Some things made him pretty uncomfortable, but he was determined. There was no compromise of the look that he would embrace.” He and producer Brian Grazer suggested digital green eyes, which Carrey rejected in favor of the bulbous contact lenses to make him a living Seuss creation.
“It was something that I asked for that I can’t blame on anyone but myself. You’ve got to be careful what you ask for,” Carrey said. “The first day in makeup took eight hours. And I went into the trailer and asked Ron and Brian to come in, and I told them that I wouldn’t be able to do the movie and I was quitting.”
Of course, Carrey ended up sticking around, and the rest is holiday-movie history. “I did appreciate, even as tortured as [Carrey] felt, if he didn’t think he gave a performance that he wanted, he would do another take and another take,” Baker said. “He was fantastic in the film, and I don’t think anybody would’ve been better. I just wish it was a little easier to deal with him.”
Twenty-five years later, Carrey’s Grinch endures. And as Howard revealed to Vulture, “We’ve fleetingly toyed with the notion of another Grinch. I have a take that Jim gets a kick out of, and the guys would come back and write it. None of us are sure we want to really go there again.”
He added, “But the one thing is I’ve been able to say to Jim, ‘You might have to wear the suit, but you wouldn’t have to wear the makeup, and certainly not the contact lenses.’ We would still have exactly the same look because we have so much film to work with of him in the makeup that we could solve that digitally.”
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