Wonder-Con: Steve Carell on Get Smart

By George 'El Guapo' Roush on February 25, 2008

Steve Carell is one of my favorite comedy actors. It also helps that he seems very down to Earth and is just a generally funny guy. In this interview he talks about "Get Smart" and what his strangest quirk is. I'll remove the stuff of him and I rapping about jury duty. He served the same time I did. He did mention that he wants to write an Office episode about Michael Scott having to serve jury duty which sounds like it could be really funny.

So, tell us about ‘Get Smart’.

Carell:  What would you like to know?

What was it like stepping into Don Adams’s shoes?

Carell:  Daunting, because he is an icon.  That character is iconic in and of itself.  It’s scary, much in the same way doing ‘The Office’ was scary, because Ricky Gervais’s character was so fantastic and beyond reproach.  There was no way to do it better and it’s really the same way with Don Adams.  I guess I took a similar approach to doing it.  I just wanted to do a decent enough job that it might service the movie.  I was not trying to improve upon anything that Don did.  It’s such a great template for a show, and for a movie, the idea or theme behind it, because the themes are very rich.  We all just tried to do the best job that we could and hope it turned out all right.

Were you a fan of the show?

Carell:  Huge fan.  I grew up with it first run, so I loved it, and it was one of my favorite shows.

What is your weirdest quirk?

Carell:  My weirdest quirk?

Yeah, you seem like somebody who might have some quirks.

Carell:  What is that supposed to mean? [laughs]  Honestly, the weirdest thing is that I drink a lot of Diet Coke.

Why diet?

Carell:  So that I’m not huge.  I think if I have a vice then that would be it.  I don’t know if I’m necessarily that quirky.  I am sure that my kids could tell you differently.  That is probably what defines a quirk, it’s something that you are not aware of that you do.

Speaking of your kids, are they big Hannah Montana fans?

Carell:  Huge.  Huge, and we actually live not too far from Miley Cyrus, so we’ve actually seen her around the neighborhood riding her bike.

What do they do when they see her?

Carell:  They try to play it pretty cool.  My daughter is six, so she tries to play down the whole Hannah Montana thing.  She went to see a Hannah Montana concert and it kind of blew her out of the water.  And, I hope I don’t get in trouble with her, but she is in love with one of the ‘Jonas Brothers’.  I think it’s Nick, is that one of them?

What did you think of Terence Stamp?

Carell:  Fantastic.  Now, here is a guy who is so dry, and so laser sharp in everything that he does, but to meet him in person he is diametrically opposite to what I thought he would be.  He is incredibly warm, loves to laugh, and he is not a cold fish at all.  He is so sweet, and charming, and funny.  That was great.  He and Alan Arkin together was, I could just sit with that for us, to sit and talk to them.

Did you have to get in shape to do all of this?

Carell:  I worked out a bit.  It was much more physical than anything I had ever done.  People were mistaking me for The Rock all the way through.  I was fairly ripped, maybe a 6 inch height difference, but the bodies were almost identical.

You have a lot of action, huh?

Carell:  I do.  Again, here is someone whose image sort of belies what they are in person.  Incredibly sweet, incredibly down to earth, charming, and really funny guy too.  Very smart.  Very eloquent man.

Seems to be almost as much of an action film as it is acting?

Carell:  I think it is.  When we first started talking about it, before anyone had begun writing a script, we just had what they call tone meetings, to decipher what the movie should look and feel like.  I thought if you could make a movie in the vain of the Bourne’ movies, like ‘Bourne Identity’ but have it be a comedy, which would be really interesting.  I don’t see this movie as a spy spoof, or a parody.   Those have been done and done very well.  I thought, and Pete [Segal] completely agreed with this, it’s the same kind of movie he wanted to make.  It’s a real spy movie with villains.  Terence Stamp is a very menacing character.  He is funny, but very lethal at the same time, he’s not a goofball.  We figured the comedy playing off of that would be interesting and fun.  I think there is an element of excitement to it, and there is a lot of action.  I never in a million years thought I would be repelling off of buildings, and hanging underneath airplanes, and fighting on SUV’s that are bursting into flames.  Crazy.  I would come home from a days work and my wife would ask ‘What did you do?’  It’s like ‘Well, I was being dragged behind an SUV on train tracks, that was my day.’

And then you arrived on set.

Carell: [laughs] Right. Then I got to the set.

When you were doing it did you meet Barbara Feldon or Mel Brooks?

Carell:  I never met Barbara Feldon.  Pete has spoken to them, and I think they have stayed in pretty close contact.  Don’s wife and two of his daughters have come to the set.  It was really nice to meet and walk with them.  They are really happy actually.  I think they were very pleased with what they saw and how it was going.  They came about half way through filming.  They were able to see a few of the pieces that we had done so far, and they seemed really pleased.  I hope they end up being pleased with the final product.

Are you in the scene with Bernie Kopell?

Carell:  I am actually, and I spent a very nice afternoon with him. I’ve always been a fan of his, so that was a big deal for me to meet
him.

He told me it was a big deal to meet him as well.

Carell:  Really?  We shot up in Montreal and he could not have been nicer and more supportive about the whole thing.  It was great, that was an honor, and my only regret is that Barbara Feldon isn’t doing anything.  She just had other obligations, but there was a part written for her.  I don’t know.  Maybe if we have more of these we can coax her into making an appearance.  I would like to meet her too.

In your next life what do you want to be?

Carell:  Boy, you know what?  This life has been pretty good.  I can’t imagine anything that would, I didn’t expect any of this to happen.  It’s all a little bit dream like to begin with.  I never go that direction.  I can’t even come up with a quick jokey answer for that, I can’t even think of anything, I’m really lucky.  This life is good enough for me.

Jimmy Fallon was always laughing on ‘Saturday Night Live’ How do you maintain the ability to keep a straight face?

Carell:  I don’t know that I think its so much an ability.  Saturday Night Live is a different thing too.  You are more encouraged to show that side of what is going on.  I think he’s just playing, I wouldn’t want to denigrate what he does at all.  In terms of ‘The Office’, if something is going really well and we are improvising something funny, sometimes it’s just impossible and you just laugh.  They cut around it and use a different take.  If someone is really on and doing a great job, I just try to think ‘I don’t want to ruin their take.’  It’s more out of respect for the other actor.  You want it to be useable.  If you laugh then the take is done, and whatever funny thing they did is going to be thrown out.  So, I try to keep in mind that I don’t want to ruin this thing they are creating.

Speaking to ‘Evan Almighty’, is it hard not to get blown out of a movie by the special effects?  That is a big question.  You are so funny but at the center are these giant special effects.

Carell:  It was a big thing.  I remember driving onto the set.  It felt like walking into a small city.  It was expansive, especially building that arc.  It was huge.  I had gone essentially from ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ and ’40 Year Old Virgin’ to that, it was just a different world.  I don’t know.  I think that can happen, and that’s up to a lot of different aspects really, so it’s hard to say.  Did the special effects in ‘Titanic’ overwhelm the story?  No, they didn’t, they only added to it.  I think it’s a matter of interpretation.

E-mail: george@latinoreview.com

Source:Latinoreview

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