Oscar Profile #377: Steve Carell

Born August 16, 1962 in Concord, Massachusetts, Steven John (Steve) Carell was the fourth son of a psychiatric nurse and an electrical engineer. Raised in nearby Acton, Massachusetts, he graduated from Denison University in Granville, Ohio in 1984 with a degree in history.

Carell was a mail carrier in Littleton, Massachusetts but quit after six months because his boss told him he wasn’t fast enough. Having enjoyed performing in comic sketches in college, he joined a touring children’s company and got work doing commercials while waiting for his big break. He made his film debut in 1991’s Curley Sue.

Having worked steadily in movies and on TV for fourteen years, Carell was given the star-making role of his career in the TV series The Office in March 2005. Although the show underperformed in its first months, NBC renewed it for the fall season based on the anticipated success of Carell’s film, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which opened in August 2005 to major box-office returns as well as critical acclaim. The Office became a hit lasting through 2013, earning Carell six Emmy and Golden Globe nominations as well as Golden Globe win in its first year.

Carell’s next film, 2006’s Little Miss Sunshine earned him strong reviews and votes from the New York Film critics for Best Supporting Actor, which he lost to Jackie Earle Haley in Little Children. It was co-star Alan Arkin, however, who received the Oscar nomination and the Oscar itself for his performance in the film. Other successes followed, including 2007’s Evan Almighty and Dan in Real Life, 2008’s Get Smart, 2010’s Despicable Me for which he supplied his voice and 2011’s Crazy, Stupid, Love the year he left The Office to concentrate on his film career.

The actor’s post series films include 2012’s Hope Springs, 2013’s The Way Way Back and Despicable Me 2, followed by 2014’s Foxcatcher for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor as well as his seventh Golden Globe nomination.

2015 was a busy year for Carell, with the animated Minions in which he reprised his Despicable Me character, as well as Freehold and The Big Short, the latter bringing him his eighth Golden Globe nomination.

2016 saw Carell in just one film, Café Society, but 2017 saw him in three films once again, Despicable Me 3, Battle of the Sexes, for which he received his ninth Golden Globe nomination and Last Flag Flying.

Steve Carell remains extremely busy. He has four 2018 films in post-production, Beautiful Boy, Backseat and The Women of Marwen and one in pre-production, She Came to Me. He is also rumored to be set for the 2019 film, Minecraft: The Movie.

Steve Carell is going strong at 55.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (2006), directed by Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris

Both a hilarious black comedy and a heart-warming family film, this surprise hit was a tour-de-force for its entire cast led by Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear as the parents, Paul Dano and Abigail Breslin as the children, Alan Arkin as the foul-mouthed grandfather and Carell as the suicidal gay uncle. Breslin and Arkin were nominated for Oscars with Arkin winning. Collette was nominated for a Golden Globe while she, Beslin and Arkin were nominated for BAFTAs with Arkin again winning. Carell was singled out by the New York Film Critics but ultimately lost to Jackie Earle Haley in Little Children.

DAN IN REAL LIFE (2007), directed by Peter Hedges

Carell excels once again as a newspaper advice columnist, a widower with three young daughters, who spots the love of his life (Juliette Binoche) in a local bookstore, only to find that she is his brother’s latest girlfriend. The two are ably supported by Dane Cook as the brother, Allison Pill, Britt Robertson and Marlene Lawston as the daughters, Dianne Wiest and John Mahoney as the grandparents and numerous other players including Norbert Leo Butz and Amy Ryan. Matthew Morrison is a local cop and Hedges’ future Oscar nominated son, Lucas, puts in an early appearance as Lawston’s dance partner.

FOXCATCHER (2014), directed by Bennett Miller

Carell received his first and, so far, only Oscar nomination for his portrayal of troubled philanthropist and wrestling enthusiast John E. DuPont who arranges to provide training for Olympic Gold Medalist Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) for the 1988 Olympics which creates a problem with Mark’s brother, Dave (fellow Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo), who is also an Olympic Gold Medalist. The film, which also stars Vanessa Redgrave as Carell’s mother and Sienna Miller as Ruffalo’s wife was also nominated for three other Oscars, including Screenplay and Direction, as well as numerous other year-end awards.

BATTLE OF THE SEXES (2017), directed by Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton

The drama behind the events leading up to the 1973 tennis match between reigning female champion Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and former male champion Bobby Riggs (Carell) is the basis of this comedy-drama in which the climatic match is a bit of an anti-climax in that we all know how it turns out but is entertaining nonetheless. Stone’s unassuming heroine is shown to best advantage, Carell’s abrasive Briggs, less so. Both received Golden Globe nominations for their performances but only Carell received a nomination from the Screen Actors Guild. Oscar ignored them both.

LAST FLAG FLYING (2017), directed by Richard Linklater

Oddly enough the pre-release talk was all about Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne, who have received critics’ awards for their performances, while Carell’s central performance was overshadowed by his more flamboyant performance in Battle of the Sexes. I found both Carell and Fishburne to be award-worthy, but not Cranston who tries hard to be funny, but just comes across as smarmy most of the time. Carell, who plays a former marine who enlists his two buddies to help him bring his Iraq War marine son’s body home to New Hampshire for burial next to his wife, is especially moving in the film’s final scenes.