Back in 1998, Jim Carrey beat the likes of Jack Nicholson, Robin Williams and Eddie Murphy to star in The Grinch. The comedian, who’d shot to A-list fame in the 1990s with Ace Ventura and The Mask, even bagged himself a then-record $20 million salary to play the Dr Seuss role. Although given what he had to endure on set, it sounds like he certainly earned the massive payday.
Carrey had to be caked in layers of prosthetic makeup to play the furry green villain every day on The Grinch, which has shot up to the top of the Netflix film chart this week.
Speaking previously on The Graham Norton Show, the comedy legend confessed that the eight and half hours of makeup application “was like being buried alive every day. I went back to my trailer and put my leg through the wall and I told [director] Ron Howard I couldn’t do the movie.”
That was when producer Brian Grazer came up with the radical idea of hiring the CIA to help the suffering actor.
Carry added: “Y’know what got me through it? The Bee Gees.”
The Grinch may have received mixed reviews upon its original release in 2000, but went on to gross $345 million worldwide on a budget of $123 million. However, in 2018, the computer-animated new adaptation of the Dr Seuss story starring Benedict Cumberbatch surpassed it, when that version of The Grinch made $512 million on a budget of $75 million.
