With Jim Carrey back playing the villainous Dr. Robotnik for a third time in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the Canadian funnyman has revealed which of his other film characters he wouldn’t mind revisiting.
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In a new interview with ComicBook, Carrey says he would be open to playing the Dr. Seuss-created Grinch for a sequel to his 2000 holiday hit, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, if filmmakers could come up with a way to deal with the arduous makeup transformation.
“Oh, gosh, you know, if we could figure out the Grinch,” he replied when he was asked which of his film creations he would like to play again.
“It was an extremely excruciating process,” he told the outlet about filming the live-action adaptation of beloved 1957 book, adding that he had to wear “a ton of makeup” and could “hardly breathe” during the shoot.
But he says he reminded himself the importance of the Dr. Seuss book around Christmastime.
“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,” he said.
In another recent interview, Carrey told Entertainment Tonight that the Grinch was one of his most memorable characters. “When I sit at home and I put the TV on and I see Grinch up there being viewed by everybody every Christmas … it’s so gratifying. It’s unbelievable. There really is, truly, incredible magic in the universe,” he told the outlet.
But in a 2018 interview with Vulture, makeup artist Kazuhiro Tsuji said working with Carrey on Ron Howard’s Christmas classic was “excruciating.”
“In the makeup trailer he just suddenly stands up and looks in the mirror, and pointing on his chin, he goes, ‘This colour is different from what you did yesterday,’” Tsuji said. “I was using the same colour I used yesterday. He says, ‘Fix it.’ And OK, you know, I ‘fixed’ it. Every day was like that.”
Carrey’s comments about returning as the Grinch come after he was asked about reprising the role of Robotnik in Sonic 3 following his comments in 2022 that he was planning to retire from acting.
“Well, I’m retiring. Yeah, probably. I’m being fairly serious,” Carrey told Access Hollywood while promoting Sonic 2 in April 2022. “It depends. If the angels bring some sort of script that’s written in gold ink that says to me that it’s going to be really important for people to see, I might continue down the road, but I’m taking a break.”
Carrey, who originated the video game villain on the big screen in 2020’s first Sonic movie, said he was enjoying his “quiet life” away from the spotlight.
“I really like putting paint on canvas and I really love my spiritual life and I feel like — and this is something you might never hear another celebrity say as long as time exists — I have enough. I’ve done enough. I am enough,” he said.
But with Sonic 3 hitting theatres this weekend, Carrey was asked at the film’s U.K. premiere by the Associated Press why he keeps coming back to the Sonic movie franchise.
“You said in a past interview that you’d come back if you got a script written in gold ink written by angels,” a reporter asked Carrey on the red carpet this week.
“That might’ve been hyperbole, yeah,” Carrey replied, chuckling. “I came back to this universe because I get to play a genius, which is a bit of a stretch. And you know, I bought a lot of stuff and I need the money, frankly.”