As the holiday season rolls around and families dust off their favorite Christmas classics, one film stands out as a perennial favorite: Ron Howard’s 2000 adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, the movie’s legacy continues to grow, thanks in large part to Jim Carrey’s unforgettable performance as the Grinch and the behind-the-scenes stories that have only added to its mythos. With a blend of nostalgia, humor, and a touch of holiday magic, the film has cemented itself as a defining Christmas icon for a new generation.
It’s hard to imagine now, but the journey to bring Dr. Seuss’s beloved green grouch to life was anything but smooth. According to a recent oral history published by Vulture on December 17, 2025, Jim Carrey nearly walked away from the project on his very first day in the makeup chair. The process, which involved hours of being painted green and fitted with prosthetics, proved so grueling that Carrey told director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer, “I will give all my money back. I’ll pay interest. But I quit.” Carrey’s frustration wasn’t unfounded—the initial makeup application took a staggering eight hours, with layers of green paint, intricate prosthetics, and a scratchy yak hair suit making the experience feel more like torture than movie magic.
Producer Brian Grazer, determined to keep his star, went to extraordinary lengths to help Carrey endure the ordeal. As reported by ABC News, Grazer enlisted a specialist who had trained CIA officers to withstand torture. Carrey was taught a series of coping mechanisms to manage the psychological and physical discomfort: “Eat everything in sight. Changing patterns in the room. If there’s a TV on when you start to spiral, turn it off and turn the radio on,” Carrey recalled. Other techniques were more physical, like “punch myself in the leg as hard as I can” or “have a friend that I trust and punch him in the arm.”
The costume itself was a challenge beyond the makeup. Carrey described wearing 10-inch nails and contact lenses that “covered the entire eyeball,” and the prosthetics were so restrictive that he had to breathe through his mouth for the entire shoot. Rick Baker, the film’s renowned makeup and SFX artist, revealed that the studio paid Carrey a whopping $20 million for the role—a testament to his star power at the time. “The studio said, ‘We’re paying Jim $20 million, and we want to see him. Just paint him green.’ But it’s not How the Green Jim Carrey Stole Christmas. It’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. He should look like a fantasy character,” Baker explained in the Vulture oral history.
Despite the hardships, Carrey found his own ways to cope. Music became an unlikely savior. “What really helped me through the makeup process, which they eventually pulled down to about three hours, was the Bee Gees,” Carrey shared. “I listened through the makeup process to the entire Bee Gees catalogue. Their music is so joyful. I’ve never met Barry Gibb, but I want to thank him.”
On set, Carrey’s commitment to his co-stars was just as remarkable as his commitment to the role. Taylor Momsen, who played the wide-eyed Cindy Lou Who, recently reflected on her experience working with Carrey. In an interview with Vulture published December 18, 2025, she recalled, “Jim was incredibly protective of me on set.” She described a particularly harrowing scene where she nearly fell out of a sled mounted on a giant spring. “Jim is leaning over and being extravagant Jim. There was a moment where I almost fell out of the sled, and he freaked out. He called cut and started checking in on me. I was having a great time. I was laughing; I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I just almost fell very high off the ground.”
Momsen, only a child at the time, even performed most of her own stunts after attending what she called “Who school” for stunt training. “I had to learn to fly on wires and how to fall correctly onto the pad,” she said. “I fell through a trap door. I had to slide down a massive slide that you had to climb up using a rope because there was no stairs to it. The only stunt I didn’t do myself was the actual shooting out of the trash can at the end.” After her breakout role as Cindy Lou Who and later as Jenny Humphrey in Gossip Girl, Momsen stepped away from acting in 2010 to focus on her music career. She recently reunited with Carrey for the first time since the film’s premiere, bringing the story full circle.
The film’s production was a massive undertaking, not just for the actors but for the entire creative team. Director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer had to negotiate with Dr. Seuss’s widow, Audrey Geisel, who was famously protective of her late husband’s work. She only agreed to the adaptation in 1998, securing a lucrative deal that included a share of the box-office gross, merchandising revenue, and book tie-in profits. Howard’s vision was to stay true to the Seussian aesthetic, resulting in a Whoville that looked every bit as whimsical and strange as the original illustrations, with plenty of fish-eye lenses and crooked lines.
Yet, the narrative had to be expanded from the tightly constructed children’s book. The film gave Cindy Lou Who a more prominent role as the story’s moral compass, questioning the town’s obsession with gifts and reminding everyone of the true meaning of Christmas. Carrey’s Grinch, meanwhile, became a more complex anti-hero, his rants about commercialism and forced joy echoing the frustrations of many viewers. As Kayleigh Donaldson wrote in her December 17, 2025, reflection, “We also love an anti-hero with a good point. Aren’t you, too, so overwhelmed by the ceaseless cycle of spending money and turning the simplicity of Christmas into a competition of plastic tat?”
Critics may have been divided when the film first premiered, but audiences embraced it wholeheartedly. How the Grinch Stole Christmas became the highest-grossing movie domestically in 2000, earning $264 million in the U.S. and nearly $350 million worldwide, according to The Numbers. Carrey’s performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination, and the film’s influence has only grown over the years. Today, it’s Carrey’s version of the Grinch that dominates pop culture, from Universal Studios performances to holiday merchandise and pajama sets.
For many, the enduring appeal of How the Grinch Stole Christmas lies in its blend of humor, heart, and a dash of subversive spirit—a combination that feels as fresh today as it did 25 years ago. And behind every laugh and every moment of holiday cheer, there’s a story of dedication, resilience, and a little bit of Christmas magic.
