Steve Carell's 'Very Surreal Year'

Steve Carell calls himself a second banana, but perhaps he needs to give that some more thought. These days, he's commanding the spotlight.

As The Early Show national correspondent Hattie Kauffman reported Monday, Carell's latest venture is a little movie that came up big at the most recent Sundance Film Festival, "Little Miss Sunshine."

Carell plays the brother-in-law along for the ride with Greg Kinnear's character, a motivational speaker who takes his family on a strange road trip to a kids' beauty pageant.

"Little Miss Sunshine," observes Kauffman, is a dark comedy, balancing humor and heartbreak.

"I think a lot of people are describing it as a dysfunctional family road trip comedy," Carell tells Kauffman, "but, in a sense, this family is just about as functional as any other … so, they're actually kind of functional, but just a little crazy."

In "Sunshine," Carell portrays a suicidal scholar.

It's a far cry from his last film, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

In one scene in "Virgin," a medical technician pulls large patches of hair from Carell's chest.

He says it took about six weeks to grow the hair back: "I had a clown face on my chest, and it was pretty horrifying."

Would he do it again? "Certainly not in the near future," Carell kids, "unless they give me money. It all comes back to that!"

"The 40-Year-Old Virgin," which Carell wrote and produced, made him a star, Kauffman says. He won legions of fans, and an MTV Movie Award.

Then, Carell grabbed a Golden Globe for his role on the TV show "The Office."

In it, Carell plays Michael Scott, the self-congratulatory boss at a paper supply firm.

Some in Hollywood are calling Carell the front-runner for an Emmy, but he says he will "definitely not win.""That's probably not the way that Michael Scott would feel!" Kauffman says.

"No, No," Carell says. "Michael Scott would already be writing his acceptance speech and probably not only memorizing it, but making copies to send out to the press."

Asked if things are truly going great, Carell says, "I don't know; I don't know what to do with all the acclaim! It's pretty, yeah! It's a very surreal year."

Carell says it took him 22 years to become an overnight success.

He went from playing bit parts, Kauffman says, to stealing the show. His success as an offbeat anchorman in "Bruce Almighty" came as a surprise to Carell, who expected to be left on the edit room floor, and says he told his family as much.

"I think," he says, "I'm just sort of naturally that kind of person who is always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"I'm … like every character I've ever played. … I'm all smoke and mirrors.

"… Who am I, really?" he chuckled. "I don't know. I guess I'm probably most like the character I played in '40-Year-old Virgin.' "

"Dorky, sweet, sexually incompetent?" Kauffman asks.

"Yes, that's it, exactly. A perfect description!" Carell jokingly agrees. "Dorky, sweet and sexually incompetent pretty much wraps it up. I'm putting that on my business cards now!"

Carell's got all kinds of projects in the works. Along with starring in the sequel to "Bruce Almighty," "Little Miss Sunshine," out now only in limited release, will be in theaters everywhere by Aug. 18. He'll also be playing Agent 86 in a "Get Smart" movie.