Steve Carell And Nancy Walls Married 17 Years—Steve Carell born August 16, 1962 is an American comedian, actor: It’s become a cliche that every comic has a dark side, but scratch Steve Carell’s surface and that darkness barely seems to exist. Indeed, he’s so considerate and self-effacing, you start to wonder: Has the one-time improv king merely wrapped himself in a new Second City skin? Is he punking this reporter?
Ask him the worst thing he has been through, and he thinks carefully before responding: “I got knocked out with a puck, playing hockey. I got a puck right between the eyes when I was 12.”
Inquire what makes him angry, and he answers: “I don’t like to get angry. It doesn’t make me feel good. It is very human, but it’s also a loss of control, and I like to have that kind of control.”
The antithesis of what we’ve come to expect from a comedy master, he’s an avowed Catholic, a passionate family man and deeply averse to the cynicism he sees in society as a whole and comedy in particular.
“It’s not like I want to put sunshine and lollipops into the world,” he says. “But I do believe there’s been a turn toward an uber-cynical point of view, and it’s borderline mean.”
Asked about Daniel Tosh’s recent rape joke (in response to a female heckler, the 37-year-old comedian asked a Laugh Factory audience, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by, like, five guys right now … like right now?”) — which would seem to represent everything Carell despises — he deflects. “Taste in comedy, like fashion, changes all the time,” he says.
Carell’s own taste is almost frighteningly normal. He watches regular-guy TV shows such as New Girl, Top Chef and his personal favorite, Deadliest Catch (as well as NBC’s The Office, even since his departure in 2011: “It’s fun; I enjoy it”). He reads frequently but not compulsively (Gore Vidal’s 1973 novel Burr is a favorite, as is An Improvised Life: A Memoir by one of his heroes, Alan Arkin). And he numbers among his closest friends unknowns from his Second City days.
He stays in touch with Jon Stewart, who gave Carell a break in 1999 as a regular on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, and with his former Second City understudy Stephen Colbert. But again, it’s their humanity he singles out more than their comedy.
“When we were working in Second City, one of the staff members left and we had a tribute to him,” recalls Carell. “I remember Stephen went onstage and sang a song, and it was so moving and beautiful and poignant. He’s supremely intelligent, but he also has an enormous heart.”
Which is precisely what Carell’s colleagues say of him. “He worked a long time before he broke through, and that makes a huge difference,” notes Date Night co-star Tina Fey, who plans to reteam with Carell in Mail-Order Groom, a comedy about a hopeless romantic and her relationship with a Russian “male bride.” “What’s weird is that he is so mature and civilized.”
If this seems un-starlike, it is — after all, how many other stars would spend hundreds of thousands to save a small grocery store, as he did three years ago in Marshfield, Mass., not far from where he grew up in Acton? “I don’t want to take up any more space than I’m given; I don’t feel I’m entitled to any more than anyone else,” insists Carell. “If I’d had a great level of success early on, who knows how I would have responded. I might have been a complete jerk.”
Perhaps this nice-guy persona has prevented Carell from reaching an even higher level of stardom. But it hasn’t prevented him from being funny.
He proved that with his return to Daily Show in June, ostensibly to promote his film Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. Instead, he played the glasses-wearing author of a book on former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak, The Last Pharaoh: Egypt’s Transition From the Mubarak Era, and another titled Fifty Shades of Yams.
“I walked into his dressing room the day of the show and threw [the books] on the table,” says Stewart. “You can’t do that with a lot of people, but you can with Steve.”
Making people laugh isn’t all that interests him. More than almost any other current comedy star, he is determined to push the boundaries — regardless of the fact that others have tried and failed to get serious.
That urge weighed heavily in his decision to leave Office in March 2011, even though the show had made him a household name and brought him a reported $300,000 an episode. (He makes as much as $12 million to $15 million per film.)
Days after Carell wrapped his final episode, the actor and his colleagues gathered for a private send-off at Soho House in West Hollywood. The event came with a scrapbook by his closest collaborators and a warning.
In a video created by co-star John Krasinski and featuring comments by everyone from Fey to Colbert to Aaron Sorkin, “Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen did this hilarious thing,” recalls Carell. “It starts with her giving me congratulations, and over her shoulder you see Ted watching TV, mesmerized by a rerun of Cheers. The upshot was: ‘Don’t let this happen to you.’ ”
Carell won’t. About to turn 50 on Aug. 16, he is shifting gears, ramping up his production company, Carousel Productions, broadening his material from light comedy to drama — and even playing a deranged killer.
That doesn’t mean Carell is abandoning comedy: He stars as a therapist hired to save Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones’ marriage in Sony’s Aug. 10 release Hope Springs and expects to shoot a sequel to Anchorman in February or March. But a transition is definitely under way.
Read more: http://movies.yahoo.com/news/steve-carell-im-not-driven-stardom-way-165830968.html
Ask him the worst thing he has been through, and he thinks carefully before responding: “I got knocked out with a puck, playing hockey. I got a puck right between the eyes when I was 12.”
Inquire what makes him angry, and he answers: “I don’t like to get angry. It doesn’t make me feel good. It is very human, but it’s also a loss of control, and I like to have that kind of control.”
The antithesis of what we’ve come to expect from a comedy master, he’s an avowed Catholic, a passionate family man and deeply averse to the cynicism he sees in society as a whole and comedy in particular.
“It’s not like I want to put sunshine and lollipops into the world,” he says. “But I do believe there’s been a turn toward an uber-cynical point of view, and it’s borderline mean.”
Asked about Daniel Tosh’s recent rape joke (in response to a female heckler, the 37-year-old comedian asked a Laugh Factory audience, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by, like, five guys right now … like right now?”) — which would seem to represent everything Carell despises — he deflects. “Taste in comedy, like fashion, changes all the time,” he says.
Carell’s own taste is almost frighteningly normal. He watches regular-guy TV shows such as New Girl, Top Chef and his personal favorite, Deadliest Catch (as well as NBC’s The Office, even since his departure in 2011: “It’s fun; I enjoy it”). He reads frequently but not compulsively (Gore Vidal’s 1973 novel Burr is a favorite, as is An Improvised Life: A Memoir by one of his heroes, Alan Arkin). And he numbers among his closest friends unknowns from his Second City days.
He stays in touch with Jon Stewart, who gave Carell a break in 1999 as a regular on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, and with his former Second City understudy Stephen Colbert. But again, it’s their humanity he singles out more than their comedy.
“When we were working in Second City, one of the staff members left and we had a tribute to him,” recalls Carell. “I remember Stephen went onstage and sang a song, and it was so moving and beautiful and poignant. He’s supremely intelligent, but he also has an enormous heart.”
Which is precisely what Carell’s colleagues say of him. “He worked a long time before he broke through, and that makes a huge difference,” notes Date Night co-star Tina Fey, who plans to reteam with Carell in Mail-Order Groom, a comedy about a hopeless romantic and her relationship with a Russian “male bride.” “What’s weird is that he is so mature and civilized.”
If this seems un-starlike, it is — after all, how many other stars would spend hundreds of thousands to save a small grocery store, as he did three years ago in Marshfield, Mass., not far from where he grew up in Acton? “I don’t want to take up any more space than I’m given; I don’t feel I’m entitled to any more than anyone else,” insists Carell. “If I’d had a great level of success early on, who knows how I would have responded. I might have been a complete jerk.”
Perhaps this nice-guy persona has prevented Carell from reaching an even higher level of stardom. But it hasn’t prevented him from being funny.
He proved that with his return to Daily Show in June, ostensibly to promote his film Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. Instead, he played the glasses-wearing author of a book on former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak, The Last Pharaoh: Egypt’s Transition From the Mubarak Era, and another titled Fifty Shades of Yams.
“I walked into his dressing room the day of the show and threw [the books] on the table,” says Stewart. “You can’t do that with a lot of people, but you can with Steve.”
Making people laugh isn’t all that interests him. More than almost any other current comedy star, he is determined to push the boundaries — regardless of the fact that others have tried and failed to get serious.
That urge weighed heavily in his decision to leave Office in March 2011, even though the show had made him a household name and brought him a reported $300,000 an episode. (He makes as much as $12 million to $15 million per film.)
Days after Carell wrapped his final episode, the actor and his colleagues gathered for a private send-off at Soho House in West Hollywood. The event came with a scrapbook by his closest collaborators and a warning.
In a video created by co-star John Krasinski and featuring comments by everyone from Fey to Colbert to Aaron Sorkin, “Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen did this hilarious thing,” recalls Carell. “It starts with her giving me congratulations, and over her shoulder you see Ted watching TV, mesmerized by a rerun of Cheers. The upshot was: ‘Don’t let this happen to you.’ ”
Carell won’t. About to turn 50 on Aug. 16, he is shifting gears, ramping up his production company, Carousel Productions, broadening his material from light comedy to drama — and even playing a deranged killer.
That doesn’t mean Carell is abandoning comedy: He stars as a therapist hired to save Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones’ marriage in Sony’s Aug. 10 release Hope Springs and expects to shoot a sequel to Anchorman in February or March. But a transition is definitely under way.
Read more: http://movies.yahoo.com/news/steve-carell-im-not-driven-stardom-way-165830968.html
