Dr. Seuss Rocks Your Socks!

The face of Dr. Seuss’ Once-ler revealed!

For 40 years, fans of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax have wondered about The Once-ler.

Exactly who – or what – is attached to those spindly green arms, seen in the 1971 storybook heedlessly chopping down the lush, candy-colored truffula forest? Until now, only the grouchy Lorax (who confronts him declaring, “I speak for the trees!”) could know for sure.

Though the good doctor never showed us The Once-ler’s face, a new Universal movie (out March 2) from the animation team whose credits include Despicable Me and Horton Hears a Who offers a surprising twist to a longtime pop-culture mystery.

Dr. Seuss fans, prepare to lay your eyes on The Once-ler.

 Below is how we see him in the Illumination Entertainment movie, and the surprise is that the Once-ler is not some Grinch-esque monster after all.

Instead, he’s a misguided, fresh-faced young man (voiced by The Office’s Ed Helms), whose destructive actions warp not only his world, but eventually himself. Meanwhile, the smallish, brownish, bossy Lorax (voiced by Danny DeVito) pleads and scolds on behalf of Seuss’ curlicue fantasy woodlands, but this story is ultimately about two things: making bad choices, and making amends.

(Read more at EW’s site, including other stills from the movie)