Press Conference: Steve Carell on Evan Almighty!
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This past weekend Steve Carell and other cast members took part of the Evan Almighty press conferences that were held in Los Angeles.
So if you had 20 to 30 minutes to ask god something, what would that be? Who knows, but if you have 20 to 30 minutes to ask Steve Carell something, what would you ask?
Hopefully there is something in this press conference that you will find entertaining.
Question: Oh, you do the dance.
Carell: Were people doing the dance after the movie? When did you guys see it?
Question: Last night.
Carell: Was it the Arclight?
Question: Yes.
Carell: I've never been there. Is that like a fancy?
Question: Are your kids similar to those in the movie?
Carell: My kids are angels and never do anything wrong. They are never aggravating and are perfect in every way except I have a 3 and 6 year old. I think that everybody goes through that. The kids in the movie are a little bit older than mine. Everybody goes through problems and difficulties and brattie-ness and where to draw the line. It was interesting too because we sort of bonded with the kids who played our kids in the movie because we spent a lot of time driving around in that Hummer. They were just in the backseat and there were times that they would not stop. They were getting dirty and telling dirty jokes to each other. They were laughing and we were trying to do a take and they would be all over the place. Lauren [Graham] and I sort of became the parental figures. Like good cop bad cop and I was generally bad cop with the kids. But we actually got along really well with them. The kids were almost as good as the animals.
Question: Have you talked to Steven Colbert about the pro bear agenda in this movie? I wonder what he would think of you turning them into godless killing machines on them?
Carell: I have not talked to Steven about the godless killing machines. I am sure that he would weigh in it on his show. I hope he goes after the movie on it because of course that would in turn be a
vote of confidence.
Question: Tom Shadyac was saying earlier that you had no idea about casting and I was wondering why were you so enthusiastic from the outset about this film?
Carell: Well mostly because of Tom. The first movie I ever did was 'Bruce Almighty' and Tom took very good care of me. It was funny when I went to the premiere of that I had no idea that I would even be in the final cut. It was right here at the Universal Amphitheatre and I remember going and sitting there and there my scene was in tact. I had so much fun doing it and it was sort of a dream. I couple of years before I got the part I remember watching 'Liar, Liar' and I was watching the outtakes and Jim Carrey just making everybody laugh and how much fun they looked to be having. Then 2 years later I was doing 'Bruce Almighty' and it was exactly that and then I was in the outtakes. The chance to work with Tom again sort of on a one on one basis was like a dream come true. How the last few years sort of came about was very surreal for me. He actually came and pitched it to me and I thought that he was going to pitch the idea of a sequel starring Jim and maybe featuring me as another thorn in his side kind of character. Then when he said, 'We would like you to play the title role.' I was like, 'You had me at hello.' I was totally there.
Question: You played the character in the first film and then in the second film. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the character and his philosophy coming from those circumstances?
Carell: Well, it’s interesting the movie itself involves a guy who is fairly recently widowed I think 3 years or 4 years before. He has been raising these 3 daughters on his own and they are reaching a point of their young adult lives, at least 2 of them, that he doesn't know what to do with. He still has one that is kind of a baby little girl but that he can still manage but one of the scenes of the movie is that he doesn't take his own advice. He lets things get a way from him in terms of his own kids. Did I take my own personal, I don' know. I don't know if I even have a personal like a take or a mental manual of how I am raising kids. I think with everybody it is just day to day. You try to deal with each situation as they come. I think that is essentially what that character does as well.
Question: Tom mentioned that he is a Jesus freak. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Carell: He mentioned that he's a Jesus freak? How did that come up in idol conversation? 'Oh incidentally…'
Question: I was wondering what your own philosophy was and were you using it for this biblical comedy?
Carell: I don't see it that way, I don’t see it as a biblical comedy. I see it as a fable, I see it as a comedy that is based upon a story in the Old Testament but I don't see it as like a religious comedy in any way shape or form. I think it’s a fable, a tale about a guy who has to make a huge leap of faith. In terms of my own personal beliefs or convictions honestly I think that is such a personal thing that I don't want that the kind of infuse my promotion of this movie. I also think that narrows it because I think the movie really is for everybody. I think it is for any faith or non-faith. I think the message behind it is just that people could be a little kinder and take care of each other in the world that we live in. I think that is a universal theme as opposed a religious ideology.
Question: So you are saying that you don't want to come out as an atheist here?
Carell: No, whether I was an atheist or whatever, I am catholic, but I don't really feel like this is a platform to talk about my own personal beliefs.
Question: I wondered actually from this movie where you are very funny in it with a lot of classic stuff will you be moving into romantic leading man characters?
Carell: You know frankly I am willing to take almost any job offered me at this point so I am pretty amenable. I don't really have a path set like, 'Well I need to do this kind of movie and then that and then I need to switch it up with a psychopathic killer.' I don't look at it that way. I thought the script of 'Dan in Real Life' was and Peter Hedges is a very thoughtful filmmaker and his 'Pieces of April’ I thought was fantastic and he wrote 'About a Boy' and 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape' so he's a really accomplished person. I thought that is somebody I would love to work with so it wasn't so much, 'Oh, I want to be in romantic comedy with Juliette Binoche.' It was more like, 'Wow, I think that could be good and interesting and I think the script will bereally good.' In terms of working with Tom that was again just a delight. 'Get Smart' just something I loved growing up with as a kid and getting the chance to bring that to a movie screen is amazing. We're 12 weeks in, we're almost done shooting that and I think it's going to be fantastic. I am very bullish about 'Get Smart' for next summer too.
Question: It sounds like right now you've become quite a big movie star?
Carell: Oh yeah, I am internationally famous. [Laughter]
Question: How much of your time are you planning on devoting to "The Office" because it seems to be…?
Carell: I'll give them twenty minutes everyday for five days straight and that will be it for the season. So whatever they can get that will be it. No, I love it. Just in terms of writing and I think value, nothing
beats that. It's such a smart group of people and people are really devoted to the show. And actors who I think are fantastic, every one of them, we're very lucky. That sort of group of people doesn't come together very often on television or in movies. It's sort of a brain trust in my opinion. Especially the writing team, it's really remarkable. I am extremely happy and still very proud to be a part of it.
Question: How do you think Michael Scott would handle the same task that Evan Baxter?
Carell: [Laughs] How would Michael Scott become the modern day Noah? Wow. I have no idea. He would probably get … to come in and build the ark so he wouldn't want to do it himself. And Jan would end up convincing him not to do it because she sort of rides rough shot over him anyway. He probably wouldn't end up doing it because in his mind Jan might be more powerful than God himself.
Question: Can you talk about the charity you got involved with through this?
Carell: I met this woman whose son has been suffering with brain cancer. It’s a very rare from of brain cancer and he as a make a wish had come to visit the set of the office. I got to talking to her and she was from the Boston area and she asked whether at some point I wouldn't mind hosting some sort of benefit because there is not a lot of funding for his specific type of cancer. We got to talking and we coordinated with my manager and with Universal put together an advanced sort of Boston premiere of 'Evan Almighty' to benefit Dana Farber and this specific brain cancer so that's how that came about. So that is on the 21st I believe.
Question: You have been talking about were there difficulty with animals?
Carell: It was early on, it might have been those birds on me. They were on me for a few days straight and they were real. That wasn't a computer generated flock of birds on me. So I think the fact that they would literally not get off of me and I could move around and they would not. I don't know how they trained them to do it but they would go nowhere. And frankly and to be blunt they were all well fed before shooting began so that posed its own set of difficulties as well.
Question: Was the snake real or was that CGI?
Carell: Well it's interesting because the snake that you see was CGI. The snakes plural that they used they couldn't because they kept crawling down the back of my jacket. These were like pythons, they were serious big nasty snakes. But they couldn’t use it because you couldn't see them, they were there but they were just like in my clothes. So I had to suffer through that and then they generate a snake over me. I did suffer for the art, you have to know that.
Question: You spoke a bit bitterly about the animals…
Carell: I would never speak with bitterness about any of the animals. I loved them all desperately.
Question: So what were the most lovable and most were the most objectionable?
Carell: Lovable, giraffes and elephants, very soulful faces, kind, sweet, gentle. Ireprehensible? The baboons were horrifying. There is one scene where the baboons bring me lemonade and on one take one of the baboons spilled the lemonade and I went off book. I improvised and said something like, 'Hey man, what are you doing?' and I raised my voice maybe to that degree and the baboon thought I was getting aggressive with it and it bared its teeth and took a very aggressive stance with me. It scared the hell out of me. After the take the trainer came and said, 'You know what? Don't do that, really don't talk to the baboons.' Then you went on to say, 'You know what as a matter of fact don't look the baboon in the eye.' And I was like what? Why didn't you tell me before we started shooting not to look the baboon in the eye? So they were a little ornery. Yeah, the camel's breath in an enclosed space, a camel's breath can change the atmosphere of the room. Not only just the smell, they literally seem to change the atmospheric pressure. It's so disgusting and it's like they have 8 stomachs each more rancid than the next and it just comes out of their mouth. So those 2 would probably be the ones I wouldn't take home as pets.
Question: Did you have a favorite major get up at all?
Carell: Oh they were all my favorites again. Just in terms of my intrinsic sexiness in them? I would say the mountain man look. That was like the 3rd stage of growth which to me looked like a ‘70's tennis
pro. Little mystery, it might have been a few days without a shower or bath. Little grubby, little greasy, I think that is my personal favorite.
Question: How about the whole process and putting it all on?
Carell: It was fine. The people who applied it were such artists. David Anderson is I think one of the best special effects make-up artists in the business. He did all the design and crafting of those wigs and beards. It's about 3 to 4 hours every morning and about an hour to take it off. I really never want to hear myself complaining about it because you hear actors complaining about prosthetic make-up and it's not fun but let's face it, I'm not on a roof in 100 degree weather putting tar down. I am getting a beard stuck to my face, it's really not that bad.
Question: You mentioned before that you thought of this less as a biblical comedy but more as a fable. What do you think the message of this movie was? Is it a love story in this environment? A kid’s movie maybe?
Carell: I wouldn't say it’s a kid's movie. I think it is a movie, and this is sort of a fine line to walk too, whenever I hear someone talk about something as a kid's movie or a family movie it immediately has a negative connotation in my mind. Because I think as an adult I wouldn't go see it by myself because it's purely for children and it holds nothing for me. It's simplistic and kind of easy. I don't see the movie as that I see it as having I hope a fairly broad appeal. I think its funny, I think it would be very funny for kids but I think likewise for adults. I think message wise another fine line. I was hoping that the movie had a strong message but subtle about our environment, about taking care of it, taking care of each other, and acts of kindness to one another. Just leaving people with a bit of a positive message and making people happy. My goal beyond that was to make it funny without making it preachy or overly sentimental or overly precious. In no way no I think this movie does that. I don't think this movie crams any message down anybody's throat. I think it is done with a fairly light touch, at least I hope so.
Question: Molly Shannon has been dealing with her back did anything kind of improve to help her along?
Carell: She's doing much better, she's back in Los Angeles, and she will be completely fine. She's going to kind of just lay low. She wasn't working this summer so she can just kind of take it easy and
start rehabbing it but she's going to be fine.
Question: Did you get to meet Morgan Freeman on the first film?
Carell: I never did. I never met him on the first one. I saw him from a distance at the premiere but I was far too nervous and shy to approach him and say hi. I was almost too shy to approach him on this one as well. He's just a presence. He walks around and people have a great amount of respect and reverence for him really. He's such a fantastic actor and all you want to do is be around him. He's the type of actor I think of the best kind because he makes everyone else he is with better than they are and he's great. He could not have been sweeter and has an enormously good sense of humor about himself. So that was like, I have been so lucky in the past couple of years I have worked with Alan Arkin, I've worked with Juliette Binoche and I've worked with Catherine Keener and I've worked with Morgan Freeman. These are people that I hold in such high regard, among others I've worked with, but he's one of those iconic people that I think anyone would love to get to work with at some point.
Question: How are you able to keep a balance between your family and career? Is it becoming hard to do that?
Carell: I use sports energy drinks. Highly caffeinated sports energy drinks are the answer. I am the type of person who is always waiting for the other shoe to drop so I am not taking any of what's happening now for granted and I know that there is a window of time when I'll be able to do these things. I'm just trying to take advantage of that now while at the same time being very cautious to not let it interfere with my family life. That to me is the line. If it starts to bleed over into time away from my family then it's sort of not going to happen. So far I've been able to balance those things.
Question: Can you tell us a little bit about building the ark? Do you know about building?
Carell: I got some training. I think that one day a guy said, 'Now this is an ogger and you put it here and you press down there.' I didn't get it. I don't know who put that in the little liner notes. I am so not handy. There is no way, it would take me several hundred years to build one of those ribs for that ark. The amount of work that would take even a skilled master carpenter. Imagine this room and we are in a large viewing room, imagine that the ark was maybe twice as wide as this and 450 long. It was just the structure, the magnitude of this project. And for Tom it was really important for him to actually build it because, he was right we were talking about it early on, he said that in his mind he had this idea of me at night in front of ark. It's just this massive hulking thing almost like another character in the movie and he just couldn't get that if he did it as a computer generation or back drop of some sort. But no, I could maybe build a boat the size of this table that would then sink. No way.
Question: Can you talk about working opposite Wanda Sykes because she adlibs most of her lines?
Carell: I was so close to ruining so many of her takes because she just makes me laugh. She was doing one scene where she was on the phone just calling in and Tom just had her riffing doing different lines over and over and over. I was standing at the monitors and I literally had to leave the room because I was going to ruin what she was doing because it was so funny. She is kind of beyond funny. She has a very sarcastic, biting, sense of humor and she has kind of made her mark that way. But in person very warm, very sweet, kind, kind of a gentle soul that you don't necessarily see. I hope I didn't pull curtain aside on who she really is but she's just great, really fun.
Question: Are you afraid that people think or call you a cheap Jim Carrey?
Carell: I love it. No, I think that is a huge compliment. To even be mentioned in the same sentence with him, yeah that's a huge compliment to me. I think he's great, I've enjoyed all of his movies. I was telling somebody I was living in Chicago and I was there maybe a day after the original 'Ace Ventura' opened and it was before it had really caught on and people started catching on to him as a movie star I saw it in the day. There might have been 4 people in the theatre, a large theater. From the opening credit sequence, we were howling. I remember the guy in front of my turning around and looking at me and saying, 'I know, I can't believe it.' Like we had found this thing. The four of us were in a little club together and we were witnessing something. To even have been in 'Bruce Almighty' and to have been in scenes with him was a real thrill and honor for me. Even if I am unfavorably compared to Jim Carrey I take that as a compliment.
Question: Did you expect the dance to take off the way it has?
Carell: Oh yeah. You're going to be seeing that all over. [Laughs]
Question: So was that the grossest thing about the movie was all the well fed birds pooping on you?
Carell: It wasn't fun I have to say. It was certainly up there.
Question: It looked like the birds were actually pecking at your hand?
Carell: They were pecking at my ear and hand, they didn't like me.
Evan Almighty Premiere 06-10-07
Related: Press Conference: Steve Carell on Evan Almighty!
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