You’ve seen him in supporting roles behind the news desk in Bruce Almighty, playing a weatherman in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, and of course as a series correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Now Steve Carrell steps into his first starring role in perhaps his most challenging part yet in The 40 Year Old Virgin. We sat down with Carell and co-star Paul Rudd to discuss the art of love-making–or rather lack of it.
How autobiographical is the script and how closely do you identify with the character?
Steve Carrell: “I will not answer that question. It’s not autobiographical at all. I in fact have two children, so they are a beard. No, it was a notion I had that I brought to Judd [Apatow] last year. Essentially the pitch was the poker scene. That sequence of a guy desperately trying to keep up with these other guys telling these great sex stories and it quickly becomes apparent that he’s out of his element. And that was what I pitched to him. I identify with him. I identify with him in the sense that he’s trying. He’s doing his best to get through life and keep a good aspect and disposition going. To keep his hopes up. But, I think there is an underlying sadness to the character which there is to me as well. I think there is the parallel. I think there are elements of who I am in who this guy is but what they are I don’t know.”
Did you do any research for the character?
Carrell: “We were given several case studies by Universal which we read. Seriously and there are quite a few case studies documenting middle age virginity and who these people are and where they live and what are their likes and dislikes. And what we found to be more often then not is that they are just normal people who for one reason or another just never did it. Very similar to the character and at some point just gave up on the whole notion, because it was harder to–and every time I say something, all these really bad puns start floating into the room–but, it was more difficult to keep attempting then to give up. And so, that’s kind of the research that we did. In terms of meeting any? Not that I know of. That’s a hard thing. It’s not something you wear on your sleeve. Who knows how many virgins we’ve met in our lives. Gosh, It sounds like they’ re aliens or something.”
Paul Rudd: “The government tries to hide it, but they do exist.”
Carrell: “It wasn’t based on any, ‘Oh, I know this virgin guy who lives down the street and rides a bike. I’m going to do a movie on him. I hope he doesn’t come, because he’ll sue us.’ It wasn’t anything like that. But what we found just reinforced what we had originally imagined. This is just a guy. This isn’t some incredibly damaged human being that for a number of reasons kind of missed the boat.”
Any advice you’d give a 40-year-old virgin?
Carrell: “Aside from, ‘see the movie’? No, I’m certainly in no position to give sexual advice to anyone. If anything, I’m in need of it.”
What was your reaction when you saw your first billboard?
Carrell: “Very surreal. I was driving around with my daughter, who is four, and she kept asking me, ‘Why are you on the signs? You look stupid.’ And actually we went to the mall last week. And we’ve been out of town for a couple of weeks, so none of these billboards were up before we left. And when we came back and they were every 100 yards I kept pointing them out to my wife, ’12 o’clock! There’s one at 2 o’clock! Look at the bus!’ So, it’s strange. It’s weird. And I loooove it. Universal is really promoting and really getting behind it.”
Rudd: “When I first saw it I thought that the Universal marketing department got it right. They never do. It seems that you always see the poster and it’s, ‘Ugh.’ They all look the same now and when I first saw the poster, I couldn’t stop laughing. It’s the funniest picture in the world.”
Carrell: “I’m thinking about that as my head shot from now on.”
Did you have other expressions for the photo shoot?
Carrell: “Well, that was actually the last thing we shot in the photo shoot. We had a bunch of other setups, one where I was sipping a drink through a straw and I was surrounded in a bar by other people who were in all sorts of suggestive positions; and this was the very last thing, almost an afterthought: ‘you know what, we’ll just do this kind of funny look. Almost like a ’70s yearbook photo. We did a lot of different expressions and I think that’s the one they [the studio] found most virginal.’
Can you talk about the mix of scripted elements and improv?
Carrell: “There was a lot of going off the book. That whole run that Paul does: ‘You know how I know you’re gay?’ That is just a perfect example of…do you want to talk to them about that?”
Rudd: “We were just sitting there waiting for them to set up and Seth and I were joking around. And we just started calling each other, ‘gay’ and the crew was getting upset at us, ‘I can’t believe they are doing this while we are shooting.’ But, Judd really encouraged that. At the same time, there was a script so in terms of what is improvised and what isn’t, I don’t even really remember. The way we would shoot it was not unlike Anchorman a little bit, where we would go through the scene one time. Just shoot it one time as scripted. Then it was do something different. That was literally the direction, ‘Do something different.’ So, you never really know in the context of them really changing it all up. And Judd would never cut. We had a million feet of film. This is a true thing, I never realized this. If you shoot a million feet of film the film company will buy champagne for the cast and crew. They do.”
Carrell: “On the very last day of shooting we went over 1 million feet and they stopped. I don’t know if it was Kodak or whatever, but the film company wheeled in an enormous tray of champagne bottles.”
Rudd: “And good champagne too, not crap.”
Did you actually get your chest waxed?
Carrell: “That was 100 percent real. We set up five cameras, because we knew there would be one take. There would be no way of going back and doing it again. So we set a camera up on the guys, one over me, one specifically on my chest, one on the waxer and it was not scripted. We just had an idea for where it would go. We hired a woman who was an actress/waxer. Which in itself was a little daunting.”
Rudd: “A waxtress?”
Carrell: “Yes, a waxtress. Because, she wasn’t a professional waxer. So, if you watch closely there is one close up where you can see blood actually bleeding to the surface. So that was not CGI. And when I pitched it to Judd, I thought, it really should be real. It should be legitimate waxing. Because I thought, to see them waxing at me in pain would probably be the funniest thing in the scene. Because there’s this guy thing where there is this sadistic nature that men have to see other men in life-threatening pain. And especially self-inflicted. Ball to the nuts, like a kick in the nuts. It’s just funny, you can’t help laughing at it if you’re a guy. To capture that on camera would be really amusing. And it really did hurt. And a lot of the women in the crew were very aware of what would happen and they would say, ‘You sure you don’t want to trim your hair down a bit? It will hurt less. Can I give you some Advil?’ And I kept saying, ‘No, no, no. I’m fine. I’m fine.’ And then halfway through I was just sweating and thought, ‘This is a bad idea.'”
What was your game with the ladies? What were your secrets?
Carrell: “The soda pop stand. I was a bad dater and up until 8th grade, I went to an all boys school. So, by the time I hit high school, I was a bit freaked out by women in general. And the putting them on a pedestal part of the movie, I definitely did that. I was very wary of women. Especially in high school when I went from being a friend and then started looking at a woman as a potential love interest I could not even talk to a woman. I was pretty bad. [To Rudd] I bet you were a stud.”
Rudd: “No, hardly. But I did buy a Jeep during my senior year in high school to try to give off the appearance I was cool. And I grew my hair long like Michael Hutchens from INXS. I tried to rely on external things to fool girls.”
Carrell: “Oh, ya know I did mix my own perfume for a girl I liked. I went to my mother’s perfume on her counter and mixed probably eight or 10 perfumes together into a jar and I gave it to this next door neighbor. And we’re married now.”
How much pressure is there now that you are the star of the movie. And what are you doing in the future?
Carrell: “You know, there was no pressure until you just said that! All I kept thinking was that if this is the last movie I ever do, this has been just great fun. So, I try not to get ahead of myself in terms of the next thing. I’ve been really lucky just to support myself acting and being able to help create and be the lead in a movie is way beyond any expectation I have had. So, I am pretty happy with what’s happened so far. So honestly if this is it and it all crashes down tomorrow I’m happy. I just finished the first episode of The Office for NBC. Sept. 20 is when it’s coming back. So, that’s the next thing I’m doing.”
The 40 Year Old Virgin opens in theaters Aug. 19.
