Jim Carrey's career in Hollywood is legendary. Given Jim's traumatic origin, the fact that he's been in a number of groundbreaking, beloved, and award-worthy films is truly astounding. Of course, Jim is probably best known for how he physically throws himself into his characters, contorts his face, and alters his voice to make the people he inhabits feel sweet, touching, or downright absurd. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this is a trait that was present in his early days doing stand-up and continues to be the case with his more recent work such as Kidding, Sonic The Hedgehog, and even when playing President Joe Biden on Saturday Night Live.
But Jim also puts a lot of preparation into his work. In the case of one role, Jim Carrey sought help from the CIA. No, he wasn't playing an agent or interrogator... According to Pedestrian.TV, Jim actually needed the help of the CIA in order to cope with the sheer amount of discomfort that one of his characters was causing him...
And that character was...
The Grinch
Yes, Jim Carrey actually needed the CIA's help in order to play The Grinch in Ron Howard's How The Grinch Stole Christmas back in 2000. No, it wasn't because the Grinch was so heartless and vile, it was the costume and make-up was just a nightmare to put on.
The entire process involved having prosthetics caked onto his face with horrible glue, yak hair attached to every part of his body, including his hands which rendered them fairly useless and having his eyeballs covered. The whole process was agonizing for Jim.
The man chiefly responsible for Jim's anguish was Rick Baker, the man Ron Howard hired for the special effects makeup.
"Rick has proven himself, year after year, movie after movie, the best," Ron Howard said of Rick Baker in a behind-the-scenes documentary on How The Grinch Stole Christmas.
In the same documentary, Rick claimed that he did a makeup test on himself in order to make sure he wasn't putting Jim through too much hell. However, Rick did this only a handful of times. Jim, on the other hand, had to go through this laborious make-up process every day, for hours and hours, for months.
This led to several outbursts on set. In an interview with Vulture, one of the make-up artists claimed that Jim was 'mean' to everyone. But when you hear Jim's side of the story, you can certainly understand why he was losing it.
There's been a lot of behind-the-scenes talk about what it was like to work with Jim Carrey on The Grinch. Given the incredible pain he went through to get the famous green Grinch costume on, it's understandable why he might have been grumpy. Thankfully, he was paid a ridiculous amount of money to bring the character to life.
Where The CIA Came In
The topic of Jim's agency help for The Grinch came up while he was promoting Dumb and Dumber To with Jeff Daniels on The Graham Norton Show in England.
"Maybe this isn't true, but you, Jim, did train with the Navy Seals? Was that made up?" Graham Norton asked Jim.
"No," Jim started somewhat slyly. "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."
"How long did [the makeup] take?" Jude Law, who was also on The Graham Norton Show, asked.
"The first day was 8 and half hours. And I went back to my trailer and put my leg through the wall. And I told Ron Howard that I couldn't do the movie. 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."
"...Good gig," Jeff Daniels joked.
As for what the CIA trainer told Jim, well, it was interesting, to say the least...
"He said, '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]."
Of course, when smoking, Jim had to use a long cigarette holder in order to protect the yak-hair costume from catching on fire.
"I did the make-up 100 times..." Jim said, still exhausted by the thought of it almost two decades later. "You know what [else] got me through it? The Bee Gees."