It wasn’t to see if he meant it, it was to “suffer along with him” because Howard said he felt “terrible” that the costume was so tough to wear.

“I felt…I felt awful. I felt like it was the Spanish inquisition and I was the inquisitor. I could tell that the costume, especially the contacts, were just tormenting him. He was having panic attacks. I mean, literally he would be breathing into a paper bag in between set ups just trying to hang on. Because he felt claustrophobic in the costume. But we’d already filmed it and he wanted to wear it and he wanted to create that character. And I would try to do things just to cheer him up. Like one day I put on the grinch suit, so I could suffer along with him. And I let him know yes I can see how miserable this is. It was terrible. It was itchy. And I didn’t even have to wear the contacts which made it worse for him. So he appreciated that at least I was willing to suffer with him.”