SEAL Team Six's Founder Counseled Jim Carrey On Enduring Torturous Grinch Makeup

In 2018, Illumination Entertainment released what became the highest-grossing Christmas movie of all-time with "The Grinch." The Benedict Cumberbatch-voiced version of the classic tale was a big hit, but anyone who grew up in the 90s and came of age at the turn of the century will always prefer Jim Carrey's portrayal in 2000's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." This beloved family comedy represents one of the best Carrey films of all time and surely evokes heartwarming memories for an entire generation. But for Carrey himself, it probably evokes PTSD, as wearing the extensive makeup and prosthetics was an ordeal so harrowing it required the founder of SEAL Team Six to counsel the star on techniques used to endure torture.

The Grinch started in the pages of the 1957 Dr. Seuss book "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" That story was then adapted into the beloved 1966 animated television special of the same name, which featured the voice talents of the great Boris Karloff. Since then, there have been multiple on-screen adaptations and continuations of the story, including a 1982 television special animated by Marvel Productions that saw the infamous grouch team up with The Cat in the Hat.

When Carrey was cast in Ron Howard's 2000 adaptation, it couldn't have been a more perfect match. The actor had spent the 90s establishing himself as one of the all-time greats of comedy — especially the physical kind. As such, there was arguably nobody better placed to portray the formerly illustrated and animated character in live-action. Unfortunately, doing so became nothing short of a living nightmare for Carrey, who tried to quit partway through and only made it to the end of production thanks to the guidance of a Navy SEAL.

"How the Grinch Stole Christmas" is one of the best Christmas movies of all time, and much of its charm emanates from Jim Carrey. The star is as compelling as he's ever been, bringing Dr. Seuss' creation to vivid life through his inimitable physical stylings. All the time Carrey's Grinch is living up to his name, he still feels warm and lovable, which is really all down to the man behind the impressively elaborate makeup.

Such a feat is only made more impressive by the revelation that Carrey was working under some of the most stressful conditions of his career. As it turns out, that makeup was an absolute horror show from start to finish, and in Vulture's oral history of the film, we learn in meticulous detail just how horrific it was.

According to Carrey, the makeup initially took eight hours to apply, prompting the star to tell Howard and producer Brian Grazer that he was quitting. At the time, Carry had been offered an unprecedented $20 million to star in the movie, but was willing to give it all up to be released from his contract. Rather than acquiescing, however, Grazer looked for help and found it in, as Howard put it, "a guy who trained the military on enduring imprisonment and torture." That guy was Vietnam vet and former U.S. Navy SEAL commander Richard Marcinko, who at one point became the first commanding officer of SEAL Team Six — the team that executed the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and whose efforts were chronicled in one of the best Navy SEAL movies ever, "Zero Dark Thirty." As Grazer told Carrey, "Listen, you can quit on Monday, but just spend time with this guy on the weekend."

In Vulture's oral history of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," Jim Carrey explained that Richard Marcinko "was a gentleman who trained CIA officers and special-ops people how to endure torture," and provided the actor with "a litany of things that I could do when I began to spiral." This included punching himself in the leg as hard as possible and having a friend punch him in the arm. Other tactics included eating "everything in sight," smoking cigarettes "as much as possible," and "changing patterns in the room," such as turning off TVs and turning radios on. As Carrey went on to explain, "There are pictures of me as the Grinch sitting in a director's chair with a long cigarette holder. I had to have the holder, because the yak hair would catch on fire if it got too close."

According to the actor, however, the most helpful thing was also the most unlikely. "What really helped me through the makeup process," he said, "[...] was the Bee Gees. I listened through the makeup process to the entire Bee Gees catalogue. Their music is so joyful." In the actor's recollection, the makeup artists eventually reduced the application time to just two hours, but it still took a lot of hard work to keep Carrey from walking out, with makeup artist Rich Baker chastising the actor by way of recalling his own harrowing ordeal playing the title creature in 1976's "King Kong." After this, Baker claimed the actor "became a lot better" and finished up his incredible 92 days in makeup. Unsurprisingly, then, Carrey's one condition for making a "Grinch" sequel is that he doesn't have to endure any more makeup torture.