On the big screen, you’ve rooted for Steve Carell to get laid. On TV, you’ve hoped that he would get a clue. And you’ve laughed at his inspired comic riffing along the way. But in his new film Little Miss Sunshine, you’ll be wishing for something a little deeper for Carell’s depressed, despondent character—namely, that he’ll find a reason to live. But even as he takes his performance to darker corners, humor and hope still shine through, as Carell explains in a semi-serious conversation with Hollywood.com.
Hollywood.com: Your character in Little Miss Sunshine is a gay, suicidal Proust scholar – kind of far removed from forty-something virgins and clueless office managers. How do you prepare for that kind of role?
Steve Carell: Well, you read a bit about Proust – I think that it’s like anything else. I started thinking about who this guy was. When I read the script I thought a lot about what has brought this person to this stage of his life, and the important aspects of him to me were his intellect: He’s a scholar, he’s the self-proclaimed number one Proust scholar in the U.S., which led me to believe that he has quite an ego and tends to separate himself from others because he thinks so highly of himself and his intellect. So I figured that that was slightly disenfranchising to him. He’s removed from others and he’s done a great deal of this himself, to remove himself from other people. So I think the fact that he has this unrequited love and it blows up in his face and he tries to do himself in, that’s where we find him at the beginning of the story. So for me it was just thinking of all of those things and sort of relating to it in terms of my own life. Like what sort of things have made me feel as depressed as I’ve ever felt?
HW: Has an outwardly funny guy like you ever hit those depths of despair?
SC: That’s a hard thing to say. I don’t think so. Certainly not that I can recall, consciously. You know what? I do think that people can relate to that kind of despair whether they’ve actually felt that sort of serious kind of clinical depression or not. I think that most people can relate to what it feels like to at least have a part of that despair and to try and navigate life with that burden and that hollowness. So I think that was the first thing that I thought about, just where he begins and to give it a starting point so that there could be an incremental growth throughout the movie.
HW: As an actor and comedian, you probably experienced rejection every so often.
SC: Every so often? How about 20 years of it? [Laughs] But also you can become kind of numb from the rejection as well. And I think that’s something that happens with actors quite often is that you just start to expect it and anticipate it. So in terms of this I just thought about the personal rejections I’ve encountered in my life and the disappointments. Everyone has had those moments where you just feel hopeless and self-pitying and sorrowful, and you feel like there really is no light at the end of the tunnel. Frankly, I just went through this with my brother. Two of my brothers have now lost their wives, and I’ve gone through these periods of time with both of them where this is how they feel. It is just abject depression. There seems to be nothing left.
HW: Were you purposely looking for a role that would provide a departure, or was this a script that just came your way and was irresistible?
SC: I was looking specifically for a suicidal Proust scholar and it just happened to come across my desk.
HW: A suicidal gay Proust scholar.
SC: Exactly. Well, see, that’s the other thing too, I never approach a character in terms of the sexuality at all. In my mind it was just a person who was in love and was rejected, and I think that’s just a universal theme that most everyone can empathize with, but I wasn’t looking for a departure at all. No. I wasn’t I wasn’t looking for something that would be any sort of “breakout” character role. I just thought that it was a really good script and it made me laugh and it touched me. I thought that the script was sweet and at the same time very unsentimental and there was a lot of gray area within the characters. I never got the sense that I had seen all of these characters, or that they seemed like stock characters to me. It seemed that within each of these characters there was a great degree of humanity and pathos, but not in a corny sort of way.
HW: Did you do any of the kind of ad-libbing you’ve done in other films, or pretty much stick to the script as written? And did you come up with your character’s distinctive running style?
SC: In terms of the dialogue there really wasn’t much improvising at all, because the script was in such good shape we felt that we didn’t want to change any of the words. The directors and the actors, everyone felt that the words were right and that they were what they should be. With the run, I just thought that if this guy was in fact an intellect and a scholar and probably spent more of his life in libraries than on the sports field. He’s not necessarily inclined to be an athlete, and so I figured that I would do the least athletic run that I could. So that’s what the run was sort of based on. But there wasn’t a lot of ad-libbing at all, and yet within that there still seemed to be a lot of freedom to play with each other, because I think that a great deal of the movie involved just reacting and sort of silent moments between characters. And there is a lot that’s not specified on the page with stage directions or dialogue that I think that we were able to find as well.
HW: Any reason behind the choice of the beard?
SC: [Laughs] So I could say that the beard made him look suicidal, and then I’ll get all sorts of letters from the Bearded People of America. No. I just thought, you know what, in my mind it just seemed like something that guy would do, that he would grow a beard—a well-coiffed beard—to get himself a bit more gravitas. I was thinking just in terms of what that guy would do as a professor, that he would think that it was sort of professorial to grow a beard. But I looked at it in terms of why the character would grow the beard, and it was fun not to shave for six weeks.
HW: This film sparked a serious bidding war at the Sundance Film Festival immediately after it was screened. What was your reaction to that?
SC: I’d never been there before, and so the whole experience was new to me. And that night the movie played very well, but again I had no frame of reference: I didn’t know if all movies played well there and it was just a very accepting film audience where everyone loves films, and so they’re probably going to love everything that they see. And then that night there seemed to be a flurry of activity and everyone seemed to be really excited, especially the producers and all the people who had invested. But again, I wasn’t very aware of what that entailed. Not until much later did I sort of figure out how big a deal it had been that night. It was fun, though. The best part of it to me was the fact that the directors are the sweetest people in the world, and they had worked on this movie for five years before they even started filming it. On opening night they got up onstage to field questions and they got a standing ovation, and just to see it in their faces, how proud and happy they were—it really felt like this community of people kind of welcoming them in and saying “Thanks for creating this and we like you.” So it was nice. I felt very, very happy for them.
[PAGEBREAK]HW: Do you think the movie says something deeper about people, beyond the “dysfunction family road trip” premise?
SC: I hear the word “dysfunctional” and I think in terms of this family it’s interesting, because on the outside they seem to be a very dysfunctional family. But I don’t think that they are, in fact. Individually they are dysfunctional people and they have their problems and foibles and are fighting their own personal demons, but together as a unit they sort of work, and they’re able to get this car started and they’re able to get across the country. Sort of against all odds they are able to work as a unit, and in that sense they’re able to be a functional family. That to me is something that I believe speaks to your question, because I think in the face of adversity even the most seemingly screwed-up people and screwed-up families can work. I think that dysfunctional is a misnomer in a lot of ways, because every family is dysfunctional. I don’t know one family that is what it appears to be, or what people hope they appear to be as a family. There are all sorts of problems with all sorts of families, and I think that’s just sort of a slice of life in that way.
HW: Have you even busted by someone you know while buying porn?
SC: Have I ever been busted by someone I know while buying porn? Uh…No. Next question.
HW: How do you account for your incredible success over the past year, with a huge hit film, a TV show, an Emmy nomination–
SC: Pure, unadulterated luck.
HW: It’s been an amazing rise.
SC: And it will disappear just as quickly. [Laughs]
HW: Were you genuinely surprised by your success after the 40 Year-Old Virgin?
SC: Absolutely flabbergasted. I think “surprised” is not strong enough. I didn’t expect any of this or anticipate any of this. I have said before that I was just hoping to work as an actor, so this last year has been surreal. And I am always the type of person who is waiting for the other shoe to drop and for it to peter out and end. And if it does that’s fine—I’ve kind of prepared for it myself in some ways, because I feel it’s safer to do that. As soon as I start buying into it, and saying, “Well, here we go! It’s gonna be all gravy from here on out!” that’s when you go off the cliff, in my mind. So I enjoy it and it’s great and it’s exciting, but I also don’t’ expect it to continue like this. It’s self-preservation—to guard against inflating it in my mind.
HW: And did you have any expectation that The Office would catch on and elevate your career in the way that it has?
SC: I didn’t know whether The Office was going to go past six episodes, let alone elevate anyone’s career. I thought that it was good and I knew that Greg Daniels is a really smart executive producer and a funny guy, and he had hired a lot of really funny writers and good actors. But we were definitely up against it because obviously the comparisons to the BBC Office right off the bat. I think that everyone was very dubious, not only the show, but about recreating what’s now a classic show. So I think that most people did not have high hopes and weren’t expecting this—and frankly, us included. We were just trying to do the best that we could and with any luck make a good show. But we had no aspiration to match the original one or certainly not to exceed their show in any way. We just thought that it was a really funny premise and we hoped to make a really funny show out of it. So, no, I didn’t expect anything and the fact that it’s kind of incrementally grown and has been gaining a following is nice.
HW: Ricky Gervais has said he’s blown away by what you all have been doing on The Office, when he only did 12 episodes of the Brit version.
SC: Yeah, we’ve done 28. Well, he’s been nothing been supportive all the way through. He’s been really kind to us.
HW: Will we ever see him on the show, as David or another character?
SC: I don’t know. I haven’t heard whether he will or not. He has written an episode for this year. I haven’t read it yet, but I hear that it’s really funny. I know he’s written that episode, and that’s as much as I know. I mean, you hear rumors here and there, but I haven’t heard anything specifically.
HW: Was it refreshing to go from Little Miss Sunshine back to your wilder comedic approach with your next film Evan Almighty?
SC: Evan Almighty is such a different movie tonally. Evan Almighty will be a very broad comedy that casts a large net. It will be PG. It will be very inoffensive and very sweet. And it will definitely try to appeal to more of a family audience.
HW: You’re playing the same character from Bruce Almighty—is there a different approach to him to make more three-dimensional?
SC: It’s the same guy, but he obviously grows. I couldn’t play that same character for an hour and a half, because that would be interminable. [Laughs] He has to evolve. You find out about his family, he’s married he has three boys. It expands the whole picture of who that guy is. Working with Morgan Freeman, that was just incredible. We were out in Virginia for three months, and they built an ark. They built this thing that is phenomenal and I think it is going to be a remarkable movie.
HW: Is there less or more pressure with this one?
SC: Here’s the thing: I have already been paid. [Laughs] You know what I mean? If it absolutely tanks and my career is over, I’ll be okay. I could go away and I could raise my kids and I could take jobs as they come. If somehow it’s just a disaster professionally, I could live with that—in part because I have had such a big run of it and I’ve sort of tasted that. But it’s not like I’ve tasted that and it has done nothing but made me hungry for more. I’ve tasted it and I’m very satisfied with it.
HW: Finally, what do you hope audiences get from seeing Little Miss Sunshine?
SC: I hope it makes them happy. I went to see it last night with a real audience and people applauded at the end. And I walked out and sort of eavesdropped on what people are saying, and I heard a guy in front of me saying “Man, that was just fun. What a sweet, fun movie.” Honestly, if that’s what people walk out saying—That’s great. I think it’s just sort of a little gem. I just feel that way.
HW: Did anyone in the theater recognize you?
SC: Nobody recognized me. And I sat facing the audience. “Look at me!I”
