Steve Carell: ​‘I don’t think about com­e­dy and dra­ma as sep­a­rate genres’

“I’ll be hon­est – I was a dull kid,” Steve Carell grins. ​“I wouldn’t say I was straight-laced, but I wasn’t a par­ty guy. I played a lot of sports, I was in school plays, I was on the stu­dent coun­cil, I was on the social committee.”

When you meet him, this all makes per­fect sense. He’s dis­arm­ing­ly warm, and has a cack­le of a laugh that fills every cor­ner of the hotel room in May­fair we’re sit­ting in. Of course he was on the social com­mit­tee and the school coun­cil. Steve Carell is that guy. I tell him that the much-maligned 2010 remake of Din­ner for Schmucks is one of my mum’s favourite films, and he laughs – not polite­ly, but sin­cere­ly. It’s the same laugh I grew up hear­ing when I watched him in The Office.

“Din­ner for Schmucks was a fun one,” he sighs. ​“A crit­ic actu­al­ly told me the oth­er day that they real­ly loved Seek­ing a Friend for the End of the World,” he says, as if he’s gen­uine­ly sur­prised. ​“It’s so sub­jec­tive what might be appeal­ing to peo­ple or what might strike a chord in some­one.” The com­mon fac­tor is, of course, Carell. He’s charis­mat­ic but entire­ly with­out pre­tence, enthus­ing about how excit­ed he was to meet Lau­ra Dern, ​“Oh, you’ve got­ta meet her!” There’s some­thing pleas­ing­ly nor­mal but unde­ni­ably com­pelling about him, and it comes from a full-bod­ied com­mit­ment to his craft.

As an alum­ni of Chica­go improv com­e­dy troupe The Sec­ond City (whose grad­u­ates also include Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Jon Favreau), Carell cut his teeth as hap­less paper sales­man Michael Scott in the US iter­a­tion of The Office, but it was play­ing dimwit­ted weath­er­man Brick Tam­land in Anchor­man that intro­duced him to Judd Apa­tow. Togeth­er the pair devel­oped The 40-Year-Old Vir­gin, which became Apatow’s direc­to­r­i­al debut and Carell’s first lead­ing role.

His knack for tim­ing and impro­vi­sa­tion ensured the foun­da­tions for a career in com­e­dy were quick­ly laid – with his wide eyes and voice capa­ble of oscil­lat­ing from deep and boom­ing to high-pitched hys­te­ria, it’s not hard to under­stand why audi­ences were drawn to him as a fun­ny man. He became known as part of the ​“Frat Pack”, along­side co-stars such as Will Fer­rell, Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen, but demon­strat­ed a tal­ent for more than wit­ty one-lin­ers and know­ing glances to cam­era in 2006 when he won the role of sui­ci­dal Proust schol­ar Frank Gins­burg in Jonathan Day­ton and Valerie Faris’ Lit­tle Miss Sunshine.

The part was orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten with Bill Mur­ray in mind, and the stu­dio were keen to cast Robin Williams, but Carell – a rel­a­tive unknown with lit­tle film expe­ri­ence – took it in the end. ​“I loved that script,” he beams. ​“I was super excit­ed to get that role – I was so hope­ful about what that film could be.” The film, as it hap­pens, was a bit­ter­sweet tale of human fail­ure and famil­ial farce, with Frank as the antithe­sis of the good-natured losers Carell had become asso­ci­at­ed with in his comedic work – an intro­spec­tive, deeply thought­ful and deeply trou­bled individual.

Since then, Carell has moved seam­less­ly between com­e­dy and dra­ma, going toe-to-toe with Ryan Gosling in rom-com Crazy, Stu­pid, Love and giv­ing a blis­ter­ing per­for­mance as wrestling-obsessed phil­an­thropist John du Pont in Ben­nett Miller’s haunt­ing true tale, Fox­catch­er.

“I don’t real­ly think about com­e­dy and dra­ma as sep­a­rate gen­res,” Carell mus­es as he sips his cof­fee. ​“Ulti­mate­ly I pre­pare for them in the same way – it’s all about try­ing to make it as truth­ful as you can. A char­ac­ter in a com­e­dy doesn’t know that they’re in a com­e­dy, and the same goes for dra­ma. You don’t act a dra­ma as if you’re in a dra­ma – it’s just life, it’s just what’s hap­pen­ing.” This is per­haps most evi­dent in Beau­ti­ful Boy. Based on the mem­oirs of jour­nal­ist David Sheff and his son Nic, the film chron­i­cles the tur­bu­lent rela­tion­ship between the pair as Nic strug­gles with metham­phet­a­mine addic­tion, and David with the bur­den this places upon him as a father.

For Carell, who has two teenagers of his own, there was an obvi­ous con­nec­tion. ​“Being a dad changed me,” he explains. ​“That instant­ly became the most impor­tant thing I did and will ever do – it gave con­text to every oth­er part of my life, and I think I’m a good dad. I’m sure I’ve made mis­takes, but I’m try­ing my best.”

Carell has played fathers – and father fig­ures – through­out his career, and Beau­ti­ful Boy feels like a log­i­cal next step after Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Fly­ing, in which Carell plays a Viet­nam vet­er­an whose only son is killed in Iraq. Qui­et­ly dev­as­tat­ed, Lar­ry ​“Doc” Shep­herd reunites with his old pla­toon bud­dies in order to bring his son’s body home.

Both films wres­tle with the dif­fi­cul­ty of par­ent-child rela­tion­ships, and the dev­as­tat­ing notion of los­ing a loved one to forces beyond your con­trol. In Linklater’s film, Carell played Doc as a gen­tle, retir­ing sort, occa­sion­al­ly prone to gig­gle fits, yet unabashed­ly emo­tion­al when final­ly over­whelmed by his grief.

David Sheff is a dif­fer­ent beast, hav­ing made his name as a pop cul­ture jour­nal­ist who inter­viewed John Lennon and once wrote a book decry­ing the evils of Nin­ten­do. Carell’s vision of David sees him hell­bent on under­stand­ing his son’s addic­tion in order to com­bat it. The only way he feels able to do this is by approach­ing it with a journalist’s rugged inter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques, lead­ing him to snoop on his son’s diary and even snort cocaine in attempts to under­stand what Nic is going through.

Nic is cap­tured with des­per­ate vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty by Tim­o­th­eé Cha­la­met, whose star has been on the ascent since his per­for­mance in Call Me by Your Name. ​“He’s a good egg,” Carell nods. ​“I’m in awe of Tim­my – to be such a supreme­ly tal­ent­ed guy, but also a sweet, sweet per­son. One of the first scenes we shot togeth­er was eight min­utes long, in its entire­ty. It was inter­est­ing to do that so ear­ly – so much of their sto­ry is con­tained in that one scene. They’re not con­nect­ing, but they’re try­ing to. That love and appre­ci­a­tion comes through, but they just can­not under­stand each other.”

This fail­ure to com­mu­ni­cate gets at what makes Beau­ti­ful Boy feels like a nat­ur­al fit for Carell. In his hands, David is a flawed, often frus­trat­ing, hope­less­ly real per­son. Carell has played a lot of those over the years, from Fox­catch­er to The Big Short, and each has come with its own unique set of chal­lenges. ​“There’s less left to the inven­tion of the char­ac­ter,” he mus­es. ​“There’s a respon­si­bil­i­ty that comes with it too, because you want to do their sto­ry jus­tice and you don’t want to be cav­a­lier about how you’re por­tray­ing anoth­er real person.”

Pre­sum­ably it’s eas­i­er to feel that way about David Sheff than Don­ald Rums­feld (who Carell plays in Adam McKay’s upcom­ing Vice) but there’s some com­mon­al­i­ty between all Carell’s char­ac­ters: like a pre­ci­sion-engi­neered laser, he seeks to find what’s most human about them, and focus in on that. The same goes for Gru in hell­ish CGI main­stay Despi­ca­ble Me as goes for pro­fes­sion­al chau­vin­ist Bob­by Rig­gs in Bat­tle of the Sex­es – Carell’s off-screen affa­bil­i­ty trans­lates into a sort of cin­e­mat­ic nobility.

Even in his dark­est role to date, as the deeply dis­turbed mul­ti­mil­lion­aire John du Pont in Fox­catch­er, Carell – unrecog­nis­able in pros­thet­ics, affect­ing a nasal twang to his voice – found the most vul­ner­a­ble ele­ments of his char­ac­ter, get­ting under his skin to expose some­thing dev­as­tat­ing lurk­ing beneath. Sim­i­lar vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties are on dis­play in Beau­ti­ful Boy, but it would be remiss to describe the film as pure melo­dra­ma. Instead it explores the fraugh­t­ness of the cen­tral father-son dynam­ic, and high­lights that dark and light often live side by side in our lives.

In an ear­ly scene, a flash­back sees Carell laugh as Jack Dylan Graz­er (play­ing Nic Sheff at 12 years old) rocks out to Nirvana’s ​‘Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Piss­ings’ in the car. Cut to the present, where David dri­ves around their neigh­bour­hood in the pour­ing rain, fran­ti­cal­ly search­ing for his miss­ing son. Every­thing for David and Nic comes down to these highs and lows, and Carell is appro­pri­ate­ly philo­soph­i­cal about it.

“In real life, everyone’s been to funer­als that have laugh­ter and have joy, right? Even with­in the dark­est moments, there are brief glimpses of bright­ness and light. That’s how human beings cope with the dark times. You have to try and get your­self through it some­how,” he smiles. I tell him I’m inclined to agree.