Reason why Jim Carrey wanted to quit The Grinch on the first day over grueling experience

Jim Carrey's hilarious performance in How the Grinch Stole Christmas has made it a must-watch festive classic, but it also gave a new meaning to being a 'tortured artist'.

The 63-year-old actor has shared how he was forced to endure gruelling conditions on set of the 2000 film, having to sit for over eight hours while having thick layers of make-up and green yak hair applied all over his body.

Carrey said this made him feel like he was being 'buried alive' in the costume, causing him to lose his cool and put his foot through a wall on the first day of filming, before threatening director Ron Howard that he would quit.

With the Dr Seuss adaptation's central character about to walk, producer Brian Grazer came up with an unusual solution to Carrey's woes, the star shared on The Graham Norton Show.

His brilliant idea?

Jim Carrey was threatening to quit so the studio brought in the big guns (Universal/Getty Images)

"Hire a gentleman [Richard Marcinko] who is trained to teach CIA operatives how to endure torture," Carrey recalled.

This CIA trainer gave Carrey a series of coping mechanisms that soldiers and intelligence operatives can use to survive torture without losing their minds.

And he definitely needed it.

Speaking to Variety, Carrey has said the suit's yak hair drove him 'insane', with ten-inch fingers that meant he couldn't scratch his face, or do much of anything.

Not only that, but he also had to contend with brutal contact lenses to give the Grinch his characteristic yellow eyes. "I could only see a tiny tunnel in front of me,” he told the publication.

To get through this on the 100 separate times he had to submit to hours of make-up and prosthetic, his CIA handler gave him a number of useful distraction techniques.

Carrey explained: “If you’re freaking out and spiraling downward, turn the television on, change a pattern, or have someone you know come up and smack you in the head, punch yourself in the leg, or smoke - smoke as much as you possibly can."

And apparently, over the course of three months of filming, these techniques worked. While it was not good for his health, Carrey spent much of his time on set smoking with a long cigarette holder - to stop him from setting the yak hair on fire.

Carrey has separately shared: “Later on, I found out that the gentleman that trained me to endure the Grinch also founded SEAL Team Six.”

While this might seem an extreme measure for the studio to have taken, director Ron Howard has said that Carrey was serious about walking away from the project on day one, even offering to hand back his pay check with interest.

“He was ready to give his $20 million back! I mean, he was sincere,” Howard said.

But Carrey could see the importance of nailing the role as Dr Seuss' iconic Christmas character, a role he would fully commit to once he had been shown how to survive the torturous conditions.

Carrey said he would repeat 'It’s for the kids. It’s for the kids. It’s for the kids', to remind himself why he was drowning in itchy yak hair.