Straight white men in their forties are rarely as funny as Steve Carell. A veteran of Chicago's famed improv comedy troupe Second City, Carell starred in a number of short-lived sitcoms before audiences at bus stops everywhere beheld the remarkable over-sized grin that promoted The 40 Year-Old Virgin . Carell isn't always as innocent in his films — he has played egotistic boss Michael Scott in The Office, suicidal Proust scholar Uncle Frank in Little Miss Sunshine , and most recently a Virginia congressman divinely commanded to build an ark in Evan Almighty. Still, it is that movie poster smile, almost cruelly wholesome, that will be forever etched into our minds — perhaps because it is genuine. Carell's characters don't just exist to amuse the audience, but themselves. Were he a hammier actor, his self-absorbed characters might prove too annoying to watch, but as Carell has put it, "I think a character in a comedy should not know they're in a comedy."
In person, thankfully, Carell doesn't seem to realize how big a star he has become. While promoting Evan Almighty , Carell spoke about being a father to his two children, Elisabeth Anne (six) and John (three), and how animals are sometimes easier to herd than children. — Justin Clark
Your character doesn't have an easy time raising his kids. What about you in real life?
My kids are angels, and never do anything wrong, and are never aggravating and are perfect in every way.
The kids were almost as good as the animals. Except . . . [smiles] I have a three- and a six-year-old, so I think everyone goes through problems and difficulty and brattiness and asks where to draw the line.
[Co-star Lauren Graham and I] bonded with the kids who played our kids in the movie, because we spent a lot of time driving them around in that Hummer. They were in the backseat and there were times when they would not stop. They were telling dirty jokes to each other and laughing and were all over the place when we were trying to do a take. So Lauren and I became the parental figures — we were like, "Okay, guys!" Like good cop and bad cop. I was generally the bad cop. But we got on really well with them. The kids were almost as good as the animals.
You play a parenting advice columnist in your upcoming film Dan In Real Life. What is your character like, and how did you draw on your own experience as a father for the role?
The movie itself involves a guy who was fairly recently widowed three or four years before, and he's been raising three daughters on his own, and they're reaching a point in their young adult lives that he doesn't know what to do with. One of themes of the movie is he doesn't take his own advice, and he lets things get away from him in terms of his kids.
So did I take my own personal experience into the character? I don't know if I even have a take or a mental manual of how I'm raising my kids. It's about living day to day and trying to deal with these situations as they come. And I think that's essentially what that character does, too.
You're expanding your range these days, from playing the widower character you mentioned to your spy character in Get Smart. Do you have a particular career direction mapped out?
[Goes serious.] I am willing to take any job offered me. [Laughs] I don't really have a path set where I need to do this kind of movie, then that kind. I thought the script of Dan In Real Life was great. Peter Hedges is a very thoughtful filmmaker. His Pieces of April was fantastic. Also, he wrote About A Boy and What's Eating Gilbert Grape? As for Get Smart, it was something I loved growing up as a kid.
©2007 Justin Clark and Nerve Media
About the Author
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A recent graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Justin Clark has written for L.A. Weekly, Psychology Today, Black Book, Architecture, Fuse, and The Fader, among other publications. He is currently researching a history of the American child prodigy, and writing a mystery novel set in Los Angeles. |
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