Filed by KOSU News in Art & Life.
July 26, 2011

Steve Carell has studied improv with Chicago’s Second City and worked on The Daily Show. He’s played a clueless boss in The Office and the world’s most innocent middle-aged man in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. But his latest film, Crazy, Stupid, Love, finds him taking up the role of everyday man Cal Weaver, who needs help refining his dating skills after his wife asks him for a divorce.

Carell tells NPR’s Neal Conan that he couldn’t be more surprised at the trajectory his career has taken — from aspiring comedian to TV star to film star and producer.

“You know who’s even more surprised than I am is my wife,” he says. “She cannot believe that I get to make out with beautiful women in movies. She thinks it’s … one of the most ridiculous aspects of our marriage.”

That’s not bad considering they both had Carell pegged for the role of wacky neighbor on a sitcom. Carell jokes that the character he’s played that most closely resembles him is Brick Tamland, the weatherman from Anchorman. He says he loved the film’s total lack of sentimentality.

“Shooting Anchorman, we laughed until we cried every day we shot,” he says. “It was purely ridiculous fun.”

Carell is known for taking on roles and films that exhibit kindness, but he likes to think they still have an edge. So despite the kinder undercurrents of Crazy, Stupid, Love, he says it’s still a complicated film — that’s just the kind of world he likes to explore. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]