The actor revealed he auditioned for the role that went to Jim Carrey in Ron Howard’s 2000 adaptation of the Dr. Seuss classic
John Stamos got the chance to tell the Grinch himself that he nearly portrayed the Christmas villain in the famous 2000 biopic How the Grinch Stole Christmas, directed by Ron Howard and ultimately starring Jim Carrey.
OK, that’s not technically what happened, but Stamos did say the part would’ve been his were he not allergic to the prosthetics. And he revealed this on the ’Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast, hosted by Saturday Night Live’s James Austin Johnson, in character as the famous Dr. Seuss creation.
“Here’s an interesting fact you don’t know about me,” Stamos said during the episode. “I was originally going to play you in the movie that Jim Carrey got. I went to the makeup test, and I was allergic to all the prosthetics.”
(Stamos didn’t elaborate more on the missed opportunity. Instead, Johnson’s Grinch character went on a bit tangent about how he was brought in to do some consulting about the film and wound up “triggered” while walking around the set: “When they build an exact replica of your neighborhood, and you’re walking around, but you know that you’re on a soundstage in freaking Burbank, it’s a little eerie.”)
The 2000 adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas was a massive hit, and the elaborate prosthetic and cosmetic design — spearheaded by Rick Baker and Gail Rowell-Ryan — went on to win an Academy Award for Best Makeup. Carrey himself even said recently he’d be open to doing a Grinch sequel, if they could figure out a more efficient way to do the makeup.
“The thing about it is, on the day, I do that with a ton of makeup and can hardly breathe,” he told ComicBook. “It was an extremely excruciating process. 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.”
