Steve Carell, byname of Steven John Carell (born August 16, 1962, Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.), American comedian and actor known for both his television work—most notably on The Daily Show and The Office—and his numerous films.
After graduating from Denison University in Granville, Ohio (1984), Carell moved to Chicago, where he joined the improvisational troupe Second City in 1989. Two years later he made his film debut in Curley Sue. Other film and television work followed, including various roles on the television sitcom The Dana Carvey Show (1996), for which he also wrote. Carell’s big break came in 1999, when he began appearing on The Daily Show, a satiric news program hosted by Jon Stewart. Cast as a clueless correspondent, he became popular for such segments as “Even Stephven,
” in which he debated castmate Stephen Colbert. In 2005 he left The Daily Show to star in the American version of The Office, a British sitcom cocreated by Ricky Gervais. Filmed as a mock documentary, the series centres on the employees at a branch of the paper company Dunder Mifflin. For his portrayal of the delusional and socially challenged manager Michael Scott, Carell received numerous Emmy Award nominations, and in 2006 he won a Golden Globe. Amid much fanfare, Carell departed The Office in 2011.
In addition to his television work, Carell garnered attention for his film roles. He appeared in the box-office hits Bruce Almighty (2003), a comedy starring Jim Carrey, and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), in which he portrayed Brick Tamland, a weatherman with an IQ of 48. His major film breakthough came in 2005 with The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which he cowrote and starred in as the title character. Directed by Judd Apatow, the comedy combined crude humour with touching moments and became a critical and commercial hit. Carell’s success continued with the dark comedy Little Miss Sunshine (2006), in which he portrayed a suicidal Marcel Proust scholar.
After providing the voice of a squirrel in the animated Over the Hedge (2006), Carell appeared in such films as Evan Almighty (2007), a sequel to Bruce Almighty, and Dan in Real Life (2007), a dramedy about a single father who unexpectedly falls in love. In 2008 he portrayed the bumbling agent Maxwell Smart in the film adaptation of the television series Get Smart. In 2010 Carell starred opposite Tina Fey in Date Night, a comedy about mistaken identity. He also provided the voice of Gru, a super-villain who plots to steal the Moon, in the animated Despicable Me and played a cheerfully oblivious misfit in the screwball comedy Dinner for Schmucks.
Carell subsequently portrayed a man coping with a recent divorce in the ensemble comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011) and starred in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012), about lonely neighbours who find romance as an asteroid hurtles toward Earth. In the lighthearted Hope Springs (2012), he appeared as a marriage counselor to a couple played by Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones. In 2013 Carell starred as a glitzy Las Vegas magician facing competition from a rival performer in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and played an overbearing father figure in the coming-of-age tale The Way Way Back. That year he also reprised the roles of Gru in Despicable Me 2 and Brick Tamland in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. He played the father of a frustrated boy in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (2014), an adaptation of Judith Viorst’s classic children’s book (1972). In the drama Foxcatcher (2014) Carell played John du Pont, a member of the wealthy du Pont family who converted portions of his Pennsylvania estate, Foxcatcher Farm, into a training facility for wrestlers, one of whom he was later convicted of murdering. His ominous turn as the mentally unstable du Pont was praised by critics as a welcome demonstration of his dramatic range. The performance earned Carell his first Academy Award nomination, for best actor.
