10 Things You Didn't Know About Iconic Movie Character Costumes
6. Jim Carrey Had To Be Trained By CIA To Wear His Grinch Costume
Another iconic costume that was notoriously unpleasant to wear was that of the Grinch. In fact, it was so awful that torture experts from the CIA were brought in to teach Jim Carrey coping mechanisms to help him feel more comfortable wearing it.
According to Carrey, make-up application would take eight and a half hours every day. Speaking to Graham Norton, he compared the ordeal to "being buried alive". He also said that on the first day of filming he was so distressed that he put his leg through the wall of his trailer and told director Ron Howard that he could no longer continue as a cast member. This meltdown prompted the team to get in touch with the CIA.
While the training that the CIA gave Carrey seemed to work pretty well, he also drew comfort from another unusual source: the music of the Bee Gees. According to the actor, there would be no Grinch without the triple harmonies and soaring falsettos of the Gibb brothers, for they kept him feeling relaxed and grounded between takes.