Steve Carell is crazy, stupid busy making movies

BY DENNIS KING

NEW YORK — As Steve Carell seems poised to become his generation’s Jack Lemmon — an Everyman actor capable of playing broad comedy and self-mocking satire as well as subtle drama and touching romantic roles — he is characteristically modest about his burgeoning stature in Hollywood.

STEVE CARELL as Cal in Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy “CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.

His transition from a sketch player in Chicago’s Second City improv troupe to TV fame (on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Office”) to supporting parts in film comedies such as “Bruce Almighty” and “Bewitched” has now led him to what they call in the movie business “above the title” status. That is, he now stars in and shares production and writing duties on many of his projects.

Since breaking through as a leading man in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” Carell has mixed up his movie resume with ensemble work (“Little Miss Sunshine”), big-budget studio parts (“Get Smart”), mainstream romantic comedies (“Date Night” with Tina Fey) and modest heart-tuggers (“Dan in Real Life”).

Actors Steve Carell and Tina Fey pose for a portrait at the Hudson hotel while promoting the film 'Date Night' New York Monday, Feb. 18, 2010. (AP Photo/Carlo Allegri)

Unusual choices

During press interviews hosted by Warner Bros. at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Carell fielded questions about one of the film’s riskier choices — putting the script by animation writer Dan Fogelman (“Tangled,” “Cars,” “Bolt”) in the hands of offbeat co-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa.

As directors of the wildly off-kilter “I Love You Phillip Morris” and screenwriters of the decidedly dark “Bad Santa,” the pair hardly seemed an obvious choice to direct a multilayered romantic comedy about family, relationships and love.

“Crazy, Stupid, Love” tracks the travails of middle-age family man Cal Weaver (Carell) as his marriage falls apart and he struggles to hold together his relationships with his children, re-enter the dating world and find a new spark of hope in his life.

“We didn’t want it to be the typical romantic comedy. We didn’t want it to be a cliche,” Carell said. “And that’s something that the directors shared (with the producers). Their sensibility was very much in line with mine in terms of what we thought the movie could be.”

However, Carell did admit that some people found the choice of directors strange.

“I don’t find them strange at all,” he said. “You can say that a person is strange or their work is strange, but that’s not necessarily one and the same.

“We looked at ‘I Love You Phillip Morris’ and ‘Bad Santa,’ and we met with them and we talked about the script, and we found out how they envisioned it.