The "Almighty" Steve Carell

Funnyman Steve Carell is no 40-year-old virgin. He's married with kids! This cute, gentle, modest, soft-spoken, friendly fellow from TV's "The Office", Bruce Almighty, and the aforementioned "Virgin", is now playing a U.S. senator who wants to change the world and gets his chance to go Noah-esque when God (Morgan Freeman) tells him to build an ark in the new comedy Evan Almighty.

Inside the theater on the Universal Studios lot where the filmmakers had watched the impressive effects shots for the film, we sat down to talk with Steve, who looked business-like in black suit with more casual white shirt. We learned that the baboons in the film frightened him, he loves giraffes and elephants and wasn't fond of some of the birds that pooped on him. In the film, his character does a silly victory dance that is infectious. Steve was excited when we told him that people were doing it after seeing the movie.

Steve: Really? [big grin]

TeenHollywood: What was your most difficult scene to shoot? Was it the one with all the birds landing on you?

Steve: I think it might have been, 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 they would literally not get off me and I could walk around and I don't know how they trained them to do it, but they would go nowhere. And frankly, and to be blunt, they were well fed before shooting began. So, that posed it's own set of difficulties as well.

TeenHollywood: Ewwww. Were the snakes in the car scenes real too?

Steve: Well it was interesting, because the snakes that you see are CGI'd. The snakes [on set] that they used, they couldn't use because they kept crawling down the back of my jacket [ewwwwww]! And those were like pythons. These were serious, big, nasty snakes. But they couldn't use it, because you couldn't see them. But, they were there, but they were just like in my clothes. (Laughs.) So, I had to suffer through that and they go and [computer] generate a snake over me. But, I did suffer for the art. You have to know that.

TeenHollywood: What were the most lovable animals and what were the ones you least-liked?

Steve: Loveable? Giraffes and elephants; very soulful faces, kind, sweet, gentle. Reprehensible, the baboons were horrifying. There is one scene when the baboons bring me lemonade. And in one take, the baboons spilled the lemonade and I went and I improv'd and said something like, 'Hey man? What are you doing'. I raised my voice and the baboon thought I was getting aggressive with it and it bared its teeth and it scared the hell out of me. And after the take the trainer came and said, 'You know what, don't' do that. Really don't talk to the baboon.' And then he paused and said, 'You know what? As a matter of fact, don't 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. It's like they have eight stomachs each more rancid then the next and it just comes out of their mouth. So, those two would probably be the ones I wouldn't take home as pets.

TeenHollywood: Did you have a favorite Noah wig or get up at all?

Steve: Oh they were all my favorites I guess. Just in terms of my intrinsic sexiness in them, I would say the mountain man look. That was like the third stage of growth, which to me looked like a '70's tennis pro. Kind of like a Bjorn Borg. A little mystery. Might have been a few days without a shower or bath. A little grubby, a little greasy. I think that is my personal favorite.

TeenHollywood: How tough was the daily regimen to put that make-up and get up on?

Steve: It was fine. Y'know, the people who applied it were such artists. It was about 3-4 hours to put it on in the morning and about an hour to take it off, but I never want to hear myself complaining about it. You hear actors complaining about prosthetic makeup and, y'know, it's not fun, but let's face it. I'm not on a roof in 100-degree weather putting tar down. I'm getting a beard stuck on my face. It's really not that bad.

TeenHollywood: Your character is a workaholic at first who has a little trouble with his kids, one of whom is a teen. How are your kids in real life?

Steve: My kids are angels and never do anything wrong and are never aggravating and are perfect in every way, except...no,! I have a three and a six-year old, so, I think everybody goes through that. The kids in the movie are bit older than mine. I mean everybody goes through problems and difficulties and brattiness and where to draw the line.

TeenHollywood: How do you keep a balance between your family and your career?

Steve: I use sports energy drinks. Highly caffeinated sports energy drinks is the answer [he's kidding]. I am the type of person who is always waiting for the other shoe to drop. So, I'm not taking any of what is happening now for granted and essentially I know there is a window of time when I'll be able to do these things and 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 to time away from my family, then it's sort of not going to happen, but so far I've been able to balance those things.

TeenHollywood: It just looked like you and the movie kids in this were a real family.

Steve: 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 in the back seat and they were telling dirty jokes to each other and they were laughing and we were trying to do a take and they'd be all over the place. So, Lauren [Graham who plays Steve's wife in the movie] and I sort of became the parental figures. It was like, 'O.K. guys!' It was like good cop/bad cop. And I was generally bad cop with the kids. We got along really well with them. The kids were almost as good as the animals.

TeenHollywood: Can you talk about working opposite Wanda Sykes and ad-libbing with her? [Wanda plays Steve's congressional assistant in the film]. She's soooo funny.

Steve: I was so close to ruining so many of her takes, because she just makes me laugh. And there were times, she was doing one scene where she was on the phone just riffing doing different lines over and over and over. And I literally had to leave the room, because I was going to ruin what she was doing because it was so funny. She's sort of beyond funny. She has a very sarcastic, biting sense of humor, but in person, she's very warm, very sweet, kind; a gentle soul that you don't necessarily see.

TeenHollywood: You are back here with your Bruce Almighty director Tom Shadyac. That movie really launched you. Everybody remembers your babbling anchorman.

Steve: Tom took very good care of me. When I went to the premiere of that I had no idea I'd even be in the final cut. And it was right here at the Universal Amphitheater and I remember going and sitting there and there my scene was intact. And I had so much fun doing it. It was sort of a dream. He [Tom] actually came and pitched [this movie] to me and I thought that he was going to pitch the idea of a sequel, starring Jim [Carrey], and then maybe featuring me, as y'know, another thorn in his side sort of character. But then when he said, 'We'd like you to play the title role,' I was like, 'You had me at 'Hello.'' I was totally there.

TeenHollywood: This movie is about a biblical character but does it really matter if you "believe" in Noah and the flood?

Steve: 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 of the Old Testament, but I don't see it as a religious comedy in any way, shape or form. I think it's a tale about a guy who has to make a huge leap of faith. I think the movie is really for anybody. It is for any faith or non-faith. I think the message behind it is just if people could just be a little kinder and take care of each other and the world we live in. And I think that's a universal theme as opposed to a religious ideology.

TeenHollywood: Are you now ready for more romantic leading man roles? You'll be in a new romantic comedy called Dan In Real Life then you are staring in the Get Smart film which is action and humor. Are you just trying to really mix it up?

Steve: I am willing to take any job offered to me at this point. So, I'm pretty amenable. I don't really have a path set. Get Smart was just something I loved growing up with as a kid [the old TV show] and getting the chance to bring that to a movie screen. We are twelve weeks in, we are almost done shooting that and I think that is going to be fantastic. [Note: TeenHollywood visited Steve's Get Smart set and will report on what we saw soon]

TeenHollywood: But you are still going to be in "The Office"?

Steve: Yeah. I love it. I think it is such a smart group of people and people are really devoted to the show and we have actors who I think are fantastic. We're very lucky. That sort of group of people doesn't come together very often in television or in movies. So, I'm extremely happy and still very proud to be a part of it.

TeenHollywood: So how would your "Office" character Michael Scott handle this ark order from God?

Steve: How would Michael Scott, like, become a modern day Noah? I have no idea. Well he would probably get Creed to come in and build the ark. So, he wouldn't want to do it himself. And Jan would convince him not to do it because she rides roughshod over him anyway. So, he probably wouldn't end up doing it, because in his mind, Jan might be more powerful than God himself. (Laughs.)

TeenHollywood: How is your "Office" co-star Jenna Fisher doing after her bad accident?

Steve: She's doing much better. She's back in Los Angeles. She will be completely fine. She's going to kind of lay low. She wasn't working this summer, so she can kind of just take it easy and start rehabbing it, but she's going to be fine.

TeenHollywood: You didn't have any scenes in Bruce Almighty with Morgan Freeman [who plays God]. Did you get to meet him?

Steve: 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.' And I was almost too shy to approach him on this one as well. He's just a presence. 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 great. Could not have be sweeter and has an enormously good sense of humor about himself.

TeenHollywood: Can you talk about building the ark? We understand that it was a huge, real set piece. It wasn't all computer-generated. Did you actually build some of it?

Steve: 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. It was maybe twice as wide as this viewing room and 450 feet long. And for Tom, it was very important for him to actually build it. It's almost like another character in the movie. And you just couldn't get that if you did it as a computer generation or a backdrop of some sort. But, no, I could maybe build a boat the size of this table that would then sink. No way.

TeenHollywood: Do you like people comparing you to Jim Carrey at all?

Steve: I love it. To even be mentioned in the same sentence with him, yeah, that's a huge complement to me. I've watched him and I've enjoyed all of his movies. When I was living in Chicago; I was there the day before the original 'Ace Ventura' opened. It was before people started catching on to him as a movie star. I saw it and there might have been four people in the theater - a large theater. And from the opening credit sequence, we were howling and I remember the guy in front of me, turning around and looking at me and saying, 'I know! I can't believe it!' Like we had found this thing and the four of us were in a club together and like we were witnessing something. So yeah, to have been in Bruce Almighty and to have been in scenes with him was a real honor to me. If I'm compared to Jim Carrey, I take that as a compliment. Thanks.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.