While I don’t watch nearly as many Christmas movies and specials as I used to, there are a few that hold a special place in my heart. For example, I consider 2000’s Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas to be one of the best Christmas movies of all time. Is it as good as the 1966 animated special? I won’t go that far, but I still adore his take on the title green miser, one of his many characters who behaves like a sociopath. So with Carrey now sharing the one condition he has for reprising The Grinch, I’m actually kind of hoping this can legitimately be pulled off.
While being interviewed about his reprisal of Dr. Ivo Robotnik and first turn as Gerald Robotnik in the forthcoming 2024 movie release Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (which he signed on to do for a hilariously relatable reason), Carrey was asked by ComicBook if there was one character he’d be interested in playing again if the opportunity arose. He answered:
Oh, gosh, you know, if we could figure out the Grinch. The thing about it is, on the day, I do that with a ton of makeup and can hardly breathe. It was an extremely excruciating process. The children were in my mind all the time. ‘It’s for the kids. It’s for the kids. It’s for the kids.’ And now, with motion capture and things like that, I could be free to do other things. Anything is possible in this world.
If you’ve done any reading on the making of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, then hearing that wearing that makeup was hard on Jim Carrey isn’t a shocker. It took two and a half hours each day to put the Grinch makeup on him, and he once described that process and wearing the costume as “being buried alive.” Sure, this may be one of Carrey’s best movies, but the role took its toll on the actor, so it’s no wonder he doesn’t want to go through that again.
So if he truly would be game to perform The Grinch as a motion capture character, and is also ok with wearing the necessary motion capture gear, I’d be all for this. To be clear, I would want this to be a sequel to his first How The Grinch Stole Christmas rather than just have him redo the classic story. That would be completely unnecessary, especially considering the animated Grinch movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch came out just six years ago. Let’s see how Carrey’s Grinch is doing more than two decades after he returned the gifts to the Whos and became part of their community… and hear him drop more stellar jokes and one-liners.
Jim Carrey’s comment comes a little over a year after it was debunked that he was doing The Grinch 2, but it’s good to know he’s now at least willing to entertain the idea of revisiting that character. If the day comes that he decides he wants to do it, we’ll pass along that news. Meanwhile, see Carrey’s latest round of comedic shenanigans when Sonic the Hedgehog 3 hits theaters on December 20.
