Steve Carell Interviewed on The Treatment

            On August 11, 2010, Steve Carell was interviewed on “The Treatment.”  Steve Carell is well known for comedy films and television shows.  He is currently finishing his final season on the American version of “The Office” where he plays a very outspoken boss.  This year, Steve Carell has been in many films including, “Date Night,” the animated film “Despicable Me,” and “Dinner for Schmucks.”  He started off his career as a regular on “The Daily Show” and has also been in films such as “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Anchorman.”

            I learned a lot from listening to this interview that I did not know before.  I have seen many of the movies that he has been in and I also enjoy watching “The Office.”  I did not know that he did not originally plan to go into comedy.  He said that he just wanted to be an actor.  Steve Carell seems to fit so well into comedy films because most of the characters he plays are so over the top.  He also explained that he enjoys working with ensemble casts, which can be seen through most of his films.  The films he works on do have one or two main characters but the other characters are all very strong and are almost as important as the main characters.

            “You can’t be too self congratulatory if something does work or too tough on yourself if it doesn’t.”  Steve Carell said this when he was explaining how he does comedy.  I think that this is a very noteworthy quote because Steve Carell is considered to be a very funny actor, but he is saying that if he gets a laugh out of people, he cannot be too proud.  He is also saying that if a joke does not get the response that he wants, he just has to move on and try to get a good response from the next joke. 

            Steve Carell was talking about some of the somedians that he grew up listening to comedy albums of.  About Peter Sellers, he said: “You never got a sense that the actor gave any indication that what he was doing was funny; it was always the character struggling to get through a moment.”  He explained that he looks up to comedians who can be very funny but are funny in a natural way.  He said that Peter Sellers did not “wink at the camera” as he told the jokes. 

            “For ‘Dinner for Schmucks’, I thought about the character look and maybe a little about how the character moves…I decided that that character was left handed… it’s using a different part of my brain.”  Steve Carell said this when he was explaining how he prepared for his role as Barry in “Dinner for Schmucks.”  He said that he did not think too much about how he would stand but he did want the character to be left-handed. He decided that he would favor his left hand and see how it would change the character. 

            This interview with Steve Carell was very interesting because he does play characters that are very different from each other and from Steve Carell himself.  He had very good opinions about comedy and the actors, past and present, in comedy films.