When picking an everyman to symbolize the Earth at
the end of days, you can't do much better than low-key funnyman Steve
Carell.
The comic actor has certainly made a career of being
ordinary guys, from his film breakthrough in The Forty-Year-Old
Virgin to his breakout sitcom role on The Office to his
recent romantic comedy Crazy Stupid Love.
Carell's new film is the quirky romantic comedy
drama Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, in which he and
Keira Knightley finally figure out what is important in life right as a
70-mile wide comet is hurtling towards Earth. Poignant and surprisingly
funny, the film – the directing debut of screenwriter Lorene Scafaria –
finds some unique beats in what could be a played-out storyline, finding
black humor and heart in a sci-fi scenario usually played for shock
value.
A couple of weeks before the film opened, we were
one of several sites who were invited to discuss the movie with Carell,
his co-star Keira Knightley and writer/director Lorene Scafaria at the
Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. Due to a last-minute engagement,
Carell had to stay in Los Angeles, so we ended up speaking with him via
Skype.
First,
I have to ask you – Are you wearing pants?
Indeed. (He laughs and stands, showing he is
indeed wearing pants.)
Did you ever think
about the end of the world, what you’ll be doing?
It’s all I think about. Yeah, you know what, that’s
one of the reasons why the script appealed to me. It showed this
scenario from a different viewpoint. It’s not the viewpoint of the
President on the hotline, talking to the astronauts. It’s just people.
It’s just the normal rank and file who are dealing with this
information. It makes you think about it. It makes you think what you
would do and the choices that you would make. I probably would just
eat. I’d eat a lot of crap.
The whole idea of
facing the end of the world and having limited time left – is that
something you would rather know? Or would you rather have a big pop and
everything is over?
Just pop me. I don’t want to know. Personally, I
don’t want to have the time to put my ducks in a row. I’m hoping that
my ducks are in a row already and that I’m living my life the way I want
to live it, with joy and happiness. Because I think it puts an awful
lot of pressure if you have this much time left to make the most of it.
I’d rather challenge myself to make the most of it without that
knowledge.
You
had a wonderful chemistry with Keira. Could you talk about working
together and getting a rhythm between you?
You never know if there will be a chemistry or
whether... I think she’s great. I like her on a personal level. She
is smart and funny and self-deprecating and sweet. I was really drawn
to her. I think she’s a really kind, good person, apart from being a
great actor. I loved working with her. We spent a lot of time
together. A lot of time in the car. A lot of time just the two of us.
Sitting, talking about our lives and families and stuff like that. It’s
a cliché, but when somebody is that good an actor, it just makes
everybody else better. You can’t help but be better in the presence of
someone like that.
You’ve got another
summer movie with Meryl Streep.
(Hope Springs)
Was that very different?
I do. Well, in the same way. You know, Meryl
Streep makes everybody better, too. It’s exactly the same thing. I’m a
supporting role in that [movie]. I have a few scenes with Meryl Streep
and Tommy Lee Jones, where I play their marriage counselor. It’s really
daunting. And exciting at the same time. These big 10-12 page scenes
that are just us. It’s essentially doing an one-act play. Those were
fun. Those were fun days. Challenging, but exciting, too.
Did you ever make
Tommy Lee Jones laugh?
I did. Yeah. A lot. He was great. David Frankel
directed it. Just really such a nice experience. It was only about
three weeks, but boy, it just flew by. Really.
Whose idea was it to
have your wife play your character’s wife, and were you worried that she
was maybe enjoying her scene a little too much?
Are you referring to the dagger eyes that she shot
me? Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her move so quickly. Bolted out
of that car. That was Lorene’s idea. She called and asked whether
Nancy would be interested in doing that and she said sure. We actually
shot that scene on our anniversary, which was kind of fun. Yeah, it was
fun to be together and to be doing a scene about the end of the world in
which she leaves me, which is a lot of weird stuff going on at the same
time.
How
would you define a good friend, and how do you think technological
advancements affect the quality of friendship?
I would define a good friend as someone who is
honest and loyal. Essentially, somebody you can trust. Somebody you
can laugh with. Someone you can grow with. I think it’s like any
relationship, friendships change and grow and evolve. A good friend is
someone that through all of that evolution remains your friend and finds
different aspects of one another to connect to. When you talk about
modern technology and people texting and twittering, I just gave a
speech at Princeton, where I brought up all of this. The advent of
technology and how shameful that its usage is and how it drives us
apart. But, of course, being in part sarcastic, because I don’t think
it necessarily does. I think it’s a toy, in a way. It would be nice if
people connected more on a personal level – face to face. But it’s kind
of a moot point. Technology has made it all so much easier to connect
with one another. In a way, I think it does help, because you can
remain and be more connected with friends and people that you’ve known
in the past, through technology. It opens up a lot of avenues that
way. (pauses) I have no idea what I just said.
You’re working with a writer/director on this movie. Do you get to
improvise occasionally, or just start riffing in scenes? And similarly,
when you were with Meryl and Tommy Lee Jones doing these little one
acts, was there improvisation there as well?
Not so much with
Hope
Springs. That was a pretty tightly written
sequence. Also as a supporting characterm I wasn’t going to come in
there and start improvising and mixing it up with
Tommy Lee
Jones and
Meryl Streep.
I felt like I need to service it. I needed to be a good scene partner
to them, but I didn’t want to be any more than that. I didn’t want to
take any more time to myself. In terms of [Seeking a Friend...],
yes, there was some improvising, and some things that we discussed
before hand. Things that we might want to try, some line changes. But
we didn’t have a lot of time, so when you’re pressed for time you
generally don’t go fishing. It wasn’t a very big-budget movie so, there
weren’t days upon days at a certain location to be exploring different
improvisation. So it was limited, but there was some.
Outside of this movie, do you have a favorite end of the world movie?
Boy, a favorite
end of the world movie. (long pause while thinking) Uh,
Dr. Strangelove.
Penny took her record albums with her, and Dodge had his dog. If you
were in that position, what would want to have to have with you?
To carry around at all times? Huh, like something I could just stick
under my arm? I don’t know. Like just a huge flat-screen TV. I
honestly don’t know. I guess a good book.
Do
you know which one?
Oh, something involving Shades of Grey, perhaps. Some really
steamy romance novel. Just to get me through those last couple of
weeks.
Did you ever get worried that Sorry [the dog in the film] was trying to
upstage you in some of the scenes?
Yeah, that dog was
just a bastard. Had a huge rider and all sorts of requests. No, there
were actually two dogs that were used. One was good, and one was not so
good. We were always happy to have dog number one, the “hero dog” as
they called him. But when we saw dog number two coming out, we were
always very depressed. Dog number two had very bad breath for starters,
and clearly did not want to play. It clearly did not want to be in a
movie. Whereas dog number one, it’s like he understood where the camera
was. It was kind of uncanny. He would turn on cue. It was like
crazy! Really sweet. And dog number two was just sort of an a-hole.
You seem to like mixing it up. You just mentioned a supporting role,
this is a low-budget movie that you’re doing now, how do you look at
your career post
The Office?
Then I have the
porno movie that I’m going to be doing. (laughs) Yeah, I guess
I am kind of mixing it up but it’s not necessarily intentional, it’s
just by virtue of the things that I have going right now. I just
finished a much broader comedy with
Jim Carrey
about rival magicians, that we finished about a month and a half ago.
That’s called Burt Wonderstone.
Then this fall I’m going to do a movie with
Bennett
Miller about
John du Pont,
which is very dark. That’s called
Fox Catcher.
The
killer?
Yes, he killed an
Olympic wrestler.
It’s very hard to do comedy, yet you find great comedic timing. At what
point in your life did you know that comedy was meant for you?
I didn’t go into
acting... when I first moved to Chicago I really didn’t have a specific
intention of being a comedic actor. I just thought I wanted to work. I
wanted to be employed and do plays, The things I generally got were
comedic in nature. So I guess it started then. Then I got a job at
Second City in the touring company and it evolved from there. It’s not
like in high school or college that I thought that comedy was going to
be my focus. I didn’t even think that acting was going to be my focus,
so this was all a surprise.
What did you think was going to be the focus?
I thought I was
going to be an attorney. I thought I was going to go to law school and
become an attorney.
What do you think of
The Office
after your departure and has there been anything about it that surprised
you since you left?
Nothing that
surprised me. I knew it would be great and the writing is still
strong. I wasn’t shocked in any way, because it’s still a really good
show. It’s difficult. It’s weird to watch because it’s like if you
could graduate from college and then watch your classmates continue to
go to class and do all the things that they’re doing in college, that’s
what it seems like to me. I feel like I graduated but I still get to
tune in and see all of my friends still doing what they do.
Would
you be tempted to do a cameo?
You know what, do
you really want to see Michael Scott come back on the show?
Yes!
Me, I don’t. I
really don’t. I think people believe they want to see that, but I think
in practice they don’t. If something like that would come to pass, it
would I think be more of a letdown than something people would embrace.
That’s just my feeling.
So they’re not meeting your quote then.
(laughs) There have been no conversations about it. I’m just
speaking offhand. It seems like it’s better in theory than it is in
practice, to me. But you never know.
They say that comedy is like a game of badminton, you keep going back
and forth over the net. Was that true with you and Keira and was that
true with you and Jim Carrey, or was that more like a battle for who
gets the biggest laugh?
Oh not at all.
Jim, boy, he is so funny in this movie too. No, it’s very much the same
thing. Obviously, there are different tempos and sort of different
energies to those two people. To anyone comedic. You just have to
gauge your own performance off of that. You can’t bring the same energy
that you would bring to a Jim Carrey scene to a scene with Keira. It’s
a different movie. It’s a completely different world. Different thing
tonally as well. I mean this movie has a very specific comedic tone.
It’s dark and it’s
Lorene
[Scafaria]’s
wicked sense of humor. But it is a game, and I think it is a back and
forth, and it’s a sharing. When you’re performing with people that are
really good, you feel each other. You feel like, okay now this person
is having a moment, it’s time for me to just be supporting that moment
and to help make that moment as good and as funny as it can possibly
be. It’s very much a shared experience.
Where are you and why are you Skyping?
I'm in Los
Angeles, because I'm going to a benefit tonight. I am presenting an
award to a friend of mine. Shawn Levy. It's the Chrysalis Foundation.
It's called the Butterfly Ball. I'm presenting him with an award.
This
movie’s got an amazing amount of great supporting actors. Who was your
favorite to work with?
You know, I’m a
big
Patton Oswalt fan.
Martin Sheen.
There’s all sorts of great actors in this. But just from a comedic
standpoint, I’m a huge fan [of Oswalt]. I saw him do stand-up, I think
when I was doing Anchorman,
and it was one of the funniest stand-up acts I’ve ever seen. I’ve been
a fan ever since. So it was really nice to meet him in person.
Is
Anchorman
coming back?
It is. We’re
going to start to shoot in I think February or March. They’re hoping
for a release sometime next summer.
Was it hard to persuade you to come back to that?
Oh God, no. This
is something we’ve wanted to do for years. The persuasion was on the
studio level. We had to persuade the studio to do another one. They’d
been reticent about doing it for a number of years. We all wanted to.
As soon as we finished the first one, we started talking about doing
another one.
I assume your role would be a little bit more evolved than the first
movie.
I sort of hope
it’s not. It’s almost like that Michael Scott thing. I feel like,
maybe you think you want it to be, but I don’t think so. I think Brick
should be exactly the same, having evolved not at all. (laughs)
So
will there be another Trident fight?
It’s funny how
many people quote that movie with, “I’m in a glass box of emotion” or “I
ate a big red candle.”
“I love lamp”?
“I woke up and
shit a squirrel.” It’s weird how it entered into the pop culture. We
got together about two months ago to shoot a teaser trailer and it was
like no time had passed. It was really fun.
Can you tell us anything about your project with Charlie Kaufman?
I don’t know where
that is right now. I know that he had been assembling a cast of
Jack
Black and I think I heard
Kate Winslet
might be involved. He was getting this cast together but I haven’t
heard specifically about a shoot date. The script is a
Charlie Kaufman
Hollywood musical. It’s crazy, and really, really funny. I’ve known
Charlie since he was a writer on the Dana Carvey Show, back like
’96.
Another century.
Yeah, so I’ve been
a fan of his for a while. We’ve known each other for quite some time,
so I hope it comes together at some point.
Do you want to direct?
Someday. Yeah
that would be fun. I don’t know what or when or how, but yeah, perhaps
someday it would be fun to do.
