Jim Carrey was offered $20 million for the film: How the Grinch stole Christmas. Ron Howard was going to direct the film. The story was good and the tie in with Christmas meant that everyone thought it was going to be a great blockbuster.
Except that Carrey wanted to quit one day after shooting. It was pure torture for him.
He had to remain in a Grinch costume for 8 to 9 hours a day. And they wanted to make it realistic, without using special effects. The makeup process itself took 3 hours. The costume was made of yak hair and made Carrey itchy. But he had 10 inch long fingernails and could not scratch himself.
Carrey had to wear crooked teeth dentures that made talking difficult. The green contact lenses covered his entire eyeballs making them look huge, but which led to a lot of pain.
But the worst was the nose. A tight latex prosthetic nose was glued over his real nose and covered his nostrils. Breathing itself was difficult. Carrey literally had to breathe through his mouth.
Carrey was in so much pain that he was willing to give up on his $20 million pay cheque and quit after just one day. He started having panic attacks!
But instead of quitting, Carrey tried something else. Something crazy.
Jim Carrey hired a torture expert.
Carrey hired Richard Marcinko – US Navy Seal commander who taught CIA agents how to endure torture. Marcinko taught him tricks that made Carrey finish the shooting. Whenever Carrey felt the panic arising, he had to perform one of the tricks:
- Hit yourself in the leg as hard as you can
- Get someone else to punch you in the arm
- Splash cold cold water on face
- Smoke cigarettes
- Eat as much as you can
- Eat extremely sour candy
Why do these random tricks work in making you endure torture?
Marcinko and other torture specialists understand that pain is inevitable. But suffering is optional. If you can train your brain to let the pain not convert into suffering, you can endure torture.
Punching yourself or eating like a crazy person seems like they would cause more pain. But they break the link to suffering.
Suffering = pain x resistance
- When you face pain, your amygdala gets triggered. The part of your brain that deals with fight or fright.
- When your amygdala hits the emergency button, your prefrontal cortex – the part of your brain that reasons goes offline.
- And this creates a deadly loop that converts pain to suffering. When your body feels that you are dying, it retriggers the amygdala.
Everything happens in your brain. Pain is felt and processed by your brain. But then the resistance, the mental pushback is the problem causer. “I can’t breathe” and “I can’t handle this” keeps on retriggering your amygdala and convert pain to panic.
What Marcinko’s seemingly random tricks do is two things.
- They force a shift in your attention. The brain cannot process panic and intense sensory simulation at the same time. So the amygdala gets some respite.
- But more importantly, they help signal: “I’m not dying, I’m choosing.”
By voluntarily choosing discomfort, you break the loop. You kill resistance. Pain is still there. But pain remains pain. It becomes manageable.
Carrey felt a lot of pain but he could finish shooting the movie and earn his $20 million.
Action Summary:
- Life is too short to suffer. Pain is inevitable. Everyone feels pain. Things will break and go from bad to worse. Tragedy will occur. But don’t let pain convert into suffering.
- Unintuitively, choosing your own discomfort means you won’t suffer.