10 Times Prosthetics Nearly Broke An Actor

On the surface, signing on to play the mischievous Grinch in a live action adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas sounds like a wonderful challenge for any actor. However, Jim Carrey soon realised playing this furry green menace wasn't going to be a walk in the snow.

Speaking on the Graham Norton Show in 2014, Carrey revealed:

'The makeup took eight and a half hours. It was like being buried alive each day. On the first day I went back to my trailer, put my leg through the wall and told director Ron Howard I couldn't do the movie.'

Eventually a person who trained CIA operatives how to deal with torture had to be brought in to help the Ace Ventura star power through the arduous makeup process.

In the end, Carrey ended up being fully made up as the character 100 times.

Hilariously, the only thing which legitimately calmed the star down was the sound of The Bee Gees, as he later admitted, 'There’d be no Grinch without them.'

Carrey's legendary performance as The Grinch is still as cherished today as it was two decades ago, but it very nearly never happened, and it took a whole lot of outsider help and high pitched singing to stop this actor from breaking mid-shoot.