Bilge Ebiri, in Vulture, with a terrific oral history of How the Grinch Stole Christmas (via New York magazine in Apple News+):

It is the strangest movie. When Ron Howard and Jim Carrey teamed up to make a live-action feature-film adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s beloved children’s book How the Grinch Stole Christmas, some might have expected a straightforwardly heartwarming family picture, but the resulting 2000 film was nothing of the sort.

I really enjoyed reading this history of this movie, which has become a holiday classic—but I’ve never seen it (I can only take Carrey’s manic energy in small amounts). It intrigued me enough to finally consider watching the darn film, a quarter-century later. The history also left me deeply impressed by Carrey’s commitment to his over-the-top performance.

When this story came out a couple of weeks ago, the anecdote making the rounds was about Carrey’s panic attacks during filming and needing an intervention to help him survive the full-body makeup process:

Carrey: Richard Marcinko was a gentleman that trained CIA officers and special-ops people how to endure torture. He gave me a litany of things that I could do when I began to spiral. Like punch myself in the leg as hard as I can. Have a friend that I trust and punch him in the arm. 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. Smoke cigarettes as much as possible. There are pictures of me as the Grinch sitting in a director’s chair with a long cigarette holder. I had to have the holder, because the yak hair would catch on fire if it got too close.

Later on I found out that the gentleman that trained me to endure the Grinch also founded SEAL Team Six. But what really helped me through the makeup process, which they eventually pulled down to about three hours, was the Bee Gees. 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.

Quite the fun Christmas Day read.