Carell: Smart Enough To Be Grateful
With breakout hits like "The Office," "The 40-year-old Virgin" and "Little Miss Sunshine," Steve Carell is a household name. He's the hapless but good natured guy audiences can't help but root for.
In "Get Smart," opening this weekend, Carell gets to combine his brilliant deadpan delivery and nimble physical comedy skills as bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart.
Carell's one of those comedians who makes people laugh out of reflex, as if they know he's about to say or do something funny.
"Do people laugh when they just look at me? I don't know -- that's a dubious distinction, I think, if people just laugh at you by mere sight," he told Early Show co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez. "I hope that my wife doesn't just laugh at me. Certain situations I would not want her to just be laughing at me."
Photos: "Get Smart" Premiere
"If people get a laugh, that's a good thing," he added.
In "Get Smart," Carell isn't just a comedian, he's an action star of sorts.
"I did a fair amount of stunts, which was fun," he said. "I never would have anticipated doing stunts in a movie. I didn't think -- I didn't think that's what I was built to do. But it was really, really fun."
It wasn't an easy task for Carell to try and fill the very big shoes - well a shoe and a shoe phone - of Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart in the original 1960s TV show.
"I loved Don Adams and his portrayal of Maxwell Smart. It was definitive," said Carell. "Much like when we took the British version of "The Office" and translated it to the American version. I was up against the same thing because Ricky Gervais was iconic and I said 'I'll do the same thing with Don Adam's version of Max.' If I could get the essence of what he did and translate it that way, that would be my best bet."
"Get Smart" also stars actress Anne Hathaway as the beautiful Agent 99.
"She is okay. She looks great on camera. In person, not so great," he said, with a straight face.
But, seriously folks ...
"No, she's gorgeous - she's one of these not only gorgeous but really smart and really a sweet, sweet person," he said. "We hit it off immediately. She was the first person that came in and read the script with me on camera. We hit it off immediately. She was - we're just friends, you know, we're just - we enjoyed each other immensely."
With a hit TV show, hit movies, and a beautiful costar, Carell said that sometimes he just can't believe his good fortune.
"It's very surreal," he said. "I'm the type of person who's always waiting for the other shoe to drop too. So I don't necessarily buy in to any of it. I know it could all be very fleeting. So I try to enjoy it but not to put too much stock in it."
What does ground him is his family life with his wife, actress Nancy Walls, and their two children. Apparently, their kids have inherited the funny gene.
"My daughter is seven and she already understands, I think, irony, which is a pretty advanced concept for a 7-year-old to grasp," he said. "So, yeah, I think they're going to be pretty funny. But we're not like a wacky jokester kind of a group. We're not telling jokes to one another and getting our kids to be funny. They're naturally funny. Kids are just funny."
"Get Smart" opens in theaters Friday nationwide.