Goggins is taking up the role of The Grinch once more in a bid to call attention to the retailing giant’s plans for Black Friday. New deals will be available November 25 through 30, with Cyber Monday promotions dropping December 1. Goggins has appeared in Walmart ads since June, and says the decision to tackle The Grinch during holiday season was not one he made lightly.
“When they brought up this idea to me, I just howled,” the actor confesses during a recent interview, noting that “my elation turned to anxiety, because the thing is The Grinch is one of the most beloved characters in literature. Dr. Seuss is literature and this is one of the most iconic characters in the world.”
The actor says he carried around “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” with him on various travels for several weeks, immersing himself in the story and the way the author described the character, who must overcome a strong desire to ruin the holiday season for a nearby village until he finds the holiday spirit of its citizens rests on caring and camaraderie, not gifts and commercialism.
But Goggins’ true recognition of the character did not come until he was fully adorned in the prosthetics he would wear for the commercial shoot. “It took me a two and a half, three hour process of getting made up for the first time, and we just kind of found it,” he recalls. “Once we settled on the face and waht it was, and we got that prostethic over my nose and my mouth, I asked if I could be alone. My grin told me who wanted to be.” He began to see The Grinch as someone who is “just irritated, slightly annoyed,” and he sent an image of himself to his wife, who added that she saw the character as someone she could hang out with, despite his inherent feeling of being annoyed.
Would Goggins like to play the character again, if Walmart needs him? “I had such a good time playing him I didn’t want it to end,” he says, but such a decision “is way above my pay grade.”
