Steve Carell
Steve Carell
Steven John "Steve" Carell is an American actor, comedian, director, producer and writer. After a five-year stint on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Carell found greater fame for playing Michael Scott on the American version of The Office, on which he also worked as an occasional writer and director. He has also starred in lead roles in the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Evan Almighty, Get Smart, Crazy, Stupid, Love, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and The Way, Way Back. He...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth16 August 1962
CityConcord, MA
CountryUnited States of America
Evan Almighty' is sort of a continuation of that ('Bruce Almighty') story. My character is the same guy I played in 'Bruce Almighty,' and as it is now, I am elected to Congress. God visits me while I'm a congressman, and it unfolds from there.
So, at least the way I saw it, those first six episodes, we were very new as characters to this documentary crew, so we were more awkward with the crew ... And now that the crew has been there for a while, we're sort of getting used to them and playing to them and getting a little more confident in terms of how we use the camera.
You never saw Peter Sellers the actor trying to make you laugh. All he was doing was the character. What I'm saying is that I don't think you should know you're in a movie. I don't like it when actors are winking at the audience and saying, 'Right, isn't this funny? Are you with me?'
I had a lot of coaches growing up that were very hard on the kids in the name of building character, but it could have the opposite effect on kids.
[And on going from character to leading actor] I don't approach anything differently; I just approach it as a character. I'm always astounded at the fact that I've ever played a leading character in anything [Laughs]. And my wife concurs with that, frankly. She always thought I would be, at best, the wacky neighbor on a sitcom, so this is all just a surprise and a joy.
When you approach it, and I hate sounding like the pretentious actor, but yeah, I think you have to find things within the character that are likeable, or at least human, and not to go at it with any sort of predetermined notions as to what that character is.
I've always enjoyed watching characters that aren't aware that they're doing anything funny. And I think that inherently makes them funnier.
It's interesting when you're trying to create a character in animation. It's really a communal effort.
Well, on a personal level, I would never want to take on a character who didn't have some redeemable qualities. Even the worst of people, such as Michael Scott in The Office [Carell's character in the US version of the Ricky Gervais sitcom], have some decent human qualities that you can latch onto.
I look at improvising as a prolonged game of chess. There's an opening gambit with your pawn in a complex game I have with one character, and lots of side games with other characters, and another game with myself - and in each game you make all these tiny, tiny moves that get you to the endgame.
I think anyone loves to play a character that is either evil to a certain extent or has a real definable character flaw. Those are always really fun, and, I think, funny.
I don't want to be pretentious about, "yes, I need to move in to the more dramatic roles and express myself and prove to everyone that I'm capable of doing it," it really isn't that, I think that's a bad reason to choose roles. It's more like, who would I be working with and would they be fun to do and entertaining to watch, is it an interesting story or character.
It was tough to find the right tone, ... The first time, it was way too graphic. It pulled people out of the movie.
It was a lot like Second City in the sense that there was a great freedom to fail there.