Early life

The youngest of four brothers, Carell was born at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts, and raised in nearby Acton, Massachusetts. His father, Edwin A. Carell, was an electrical engineer, and his mother, Harriet T. (née Koch), was a psychiatric nurse. His maternal uncle, Stanley Koch, worked with scientist Allen B. DuMont to create cathode ray tubes. Carell is of Italian (from his paternal grandfather), German, and Polish descent. His father was born under the surname "Caroselli", and later adapted it to "Carell".

Carell was raised Roman Catholic, and was educated at Nashoba Brooks School, The Fenn School, and Middlesex School. Carell also played ice hockey and lacrosse while in high school. Carell played the fife, performing with other members of his family, and later joined a reenacting group portraying the 10th (North Lincoln) Regiment of Foot. Carell attributed his interest in history to this, earning a degree in the subject from Denison University in Granville, Ohio in 1984.

While at Denison, Carell was a member of Burpee's Seedy Theatrical Company, a student-run improvisational comedy troupe, and was a goalie on Big Red hockey team for four years. Carell also spent time as a disc jockey under the name "Sapphire Steve Carell" at WDUB, the campus radio station.

Career

Early work

Carell states that he worked as a mail carrier in Littleton, Massachusetts. He later recounted that he quit after six months because his boss told him he was not very good as a mail carrier and needed to be faster. Early in his performing career, Carell acted on the stage in a touring children's theater company, later in the comedy musical, Knat Scatt Private Eye and in a television commercial for Brown's Chicken in 1989. After that, Carell performed with Chicago troupe The Second City where Stephen Colbert was his understudy for a time in 1991, the same year he made his film debut in a minor role as Tesio in Curly Sue. In spring 1996, he was a cast member of The Dana Carvey Show, a small, short-lived sketch comedy program on ABC. Along with fellow cast member Stephen Colbert, Carell provided the voice of Gary, half of The Ambiguously Gay Duo, the Robert Smigel-produced animated short which continued on Saturday Night Live later that year. While the program lasted only seven episodes, The Dana Carvey Show has since been credited with forging Carell's career. During that time, he also played a supporting character for several series including Come to Papa and the short-lived 1997 Tim Curry situation comedy Over the Top. He has made numerous guest appearances, including on an episode of Just Shoot Me! titled "Funny Girl." Carell's other early screen credits includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus's short-lived situation comedy Watching Ellie (2002-2003) and Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda. Carell was a correspondent for The Daily Show from 1999 until 2005, with a number of regular segments including "Even Stevphen" with Stephen Colbert and on the Daily Show.

The Office

Main article: Michael Scott (The Office)

During 2005, Carell signed a deal with NBC to star in The Office, a mockumentary about life at a mid-sized paper supply company, which was a remake of a successful British TV series. He played the role of Michael Scott, the idiosyncratic regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Inc, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Although the first season of the adaptation suffered mediocre ratings, NBC renewed it for another season due to the anticipated success of Carell's film The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and the series subsequently became a ratings success. Carell won a Golden Globe Award and Television Critics Association Award during 2006 for his Office role. He also received six Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his work in the series (2006-2011). Carell earned approximately US$175,000 per episode of the third season of The Office, twice his salary for the previous two seasons. In an Entertainment Weekly interview, he commented on his salary, saying, "You don't want people to think you're a pampered jerk. Salaries can be ridiculous. On the other hand, a lot of people are making a lot of money off of these shows." Carell was allowed "flex time" during filming to work on theatrical films. Carell worked on Evan Almighty during a production hiatus during the second season of The Office. Production ended during the middle of the fourth season of The Office because of Carell's and others' refusal to cross the picket line of the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike. Carell, a WGA member, has written two episodes of The Office: "Casino Night" and "Survivor Man". Both episodes were praised, and Carell won a Writers Guild of America Award for "Casino Night". On April 29, 2010, Carell stated he would be leaving the show when his contract expired at the conclusion of the 2010-2011 season because he wanted to focus on his film career. His last episode as a main character, "Goodbye, Michael", aired April 28, 2011 with his final shot showing Carell walking to a Colorado-bound plane to join his fiancée, Holly Flax, in Boulder, Colorado. Although he was invited back for the series finale in 2013, Carell originally declined believing that it would go against his character's arc. Ultimately in the final version of the finale Carell reprised the role.

Film career

Carell's first major film role was as weatherman Brick Tamland in the 2004 hit comedy Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Struck by Carell's performance in the film, Anchorman producer Judd Apatow approached Carell about creating a film together, and Carell told him about an idea he had had involving a middle-aged man who is still a virgin. The result was the 2005 film The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which Carell and Apatow developed and wrote together, starring Carell as the title character. The film made $109 million in domestic box office sales and established him as a leading man. It also earned Carell an MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance and a WGA Award nomination, along with Apatow, for Best Original Screenplay.

Carell played Uncle Arthur, imitating the camp mannerisms of Paul Lynde's original character, in Bewitched, a TV adaptation co-starring Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. He also voiced Hammy the Squirrel in the 2006 computer-animated film, Over the Hedge and Ned McDodd, the mayor of Whoville, in the 2008 animated film Horton Hears a Who!. He starred in Little Miss Sunshine during 2006, as Uncle Frank.

His work in the films Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Bewitched established Carell as a member of Hollywood's so-called "Frat Pack", a group of actors who often appear in films together, that also includes Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn and Luke Wilson. Carell acted as the title character of Evan Almighty, a sequel to Bruce Almighty, reprising his role as Evan Baxter, now a U.S. Congressman. The film received mostly negative reviews. Carell starred in the 2007 film Dan in Real Life, co-starring Dane Cook and Juliette Binoche.

Carell played Maxwell Smart in the 2008 film Get Smart, an adaptation of the TV series starring Don Adams. It was successful, grossing over $200 million worldwide. During 2007, Carell was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Carell starred with Tina Fey in Date Night during late 2008 and was released on April 9, 2010 in the U.S. He voiced Gru, the main character in the Universal CGI film, Despicable Me along with Russell Brand, Miranda Cosgrove, and Kristen Wiig, The film was Carell's other 2010 film. He reprised the role in the 2013 sequel Despicable Me 2. He has several other projects in the works, including a remake of the 1967 Peter Sellers film The Bobo. He is currently doing voice-over work in commercials for Wrigley's Extra gum. Carell has launched a television division of his Carousel Prods., which has contracted a three-year overall deal with Universal Media Studios, the studio behind his NBC comedy series. Thom Hinkle and Campbell Smith of North South Prods., former producers on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, were hired to manage Carousel's TV operations.

Carell played millionaire E.I. du Pont family heir and convicted murderer John Eleuthère du Pont in the 2014 true crime drama film Foxcatcher. Since the film's premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, it has received widespread acclaim and Carell was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama and for the Academy Award for Best Actor, both of which he lost to Eddie Redmayne.

Carell played activist Steven Goldstein in the gay rights drama Freeheld, replacing Zach Galifianakis, who dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. The film co-stars Julianne Moore, Ellen Page and Michael Shannon, and was released in October 2015. He followed this with another biographical drama, The Big Short, in which he portrayed banker Steve Eisman, whose name was changed in the film to Mark Baum. Directed by Adam McKay, the film stars Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt, and it was released in December 2015, The film also received widespread critical acclaim, earning Carell a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor. The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, making it the second film starring Carell to be nominated for the award, with Little Miss Sunshine being the first.

He will next be seen in the Woody Allen comedy Café Society, alongside Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg, and in the biographical comedy-drama Battle of the Sexes, portraying tennis star Bobby Riggs opposite Emma Stone as Billie Jean King.

Personal life

On August 5, 1995, Carell married Saturday Night Live alumna Nancy Carell (née Walls), whom he met when she was a student in an improvisation class, he was teaching at Second City.

In addition to working with Carell as a fellow correspondent on The Daily Show, Nancy Carell acted with him on The Office as his realtor and short-lived girlfriend Carol Stills, and also cameoed as a sex therapist in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and played Linda in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. The couple have two children, Elisabeth (born May 2001) and John (born June 2004).

In 2009, Carell bought the Marshfield Hills General Store in Marshfield, Massachusetts. In 2011, Carell earned $17.5 million, making him the 31st-highest paid actor (excluding TV-related projects).

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1991	Curly Sue	Tesio	Credited as "Steven Carell"
1998	Tomorrow Night	Mailroom Guy without Glasses
1998	Homegrown	Party Extra with Funny Pants	Uncredited
2003	Street of Pain	Mark	Short film
2003	Bruce Almighty	Evan Baxter	Credited as "Steven Carell"
2004	Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy	Brick Tamland
2004	Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie	Brick Tamland	Direct-to-video
2004	Sleepover	Officer John Sherman
2005	Melinda and Melinda	Walt Wagner
2005	Bewitched	Uncle Arthur
2005	The 40-Year-Old Virgin	Andy Stitzer	Also writer and executive producer
2006	Little Miss Sunshine	Frank Ginsburg
2006	American Storage	Rich	Short film
2006	Over the Hedge	Hammy (voice)
2007	Evan Almighty	Evan Baxter
2007	Knocked Up	Himself
2007	Dan in Real Life	Dan Burns
2007	Stories USA	Mark Ronson
2008	Horton Hears a Who!	Ned McDodd (voice)
2008	Get Smart	Maxwell Smart	Also executive producer
2010	Date Night	Phil Foster
2010	Despicable Me	Gru (voice)
2010	Dinner for Schmucks	Barry Speck
2011	Crazy, Stupid, Love	Cal Weaver	Also producer
2012	Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem	Gru (voice)	Simulator ride
2012	Seeking a Friend for the End of the World	Dodge Petersen
2012	Hope Springs	Dr. Bernie Feld
2013	The Way, Way Back	Trent
2013	The Incredible Burt Wonderstone	Burt Wonderstone	Also producer
2013	Despicable Me 2	Gru (voice)
2013	Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues	Brick Tamland
2013	Puppy	Gru (voice)	Short film
2013	Panic in the Mailroom	Gru (voice)	Short film
2013	Training Wheels	Gru (voice)	Short film
2014	Foxcatcher	John Eleuthère du Pont
2014	Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day	Ben Cooper
2015	Minions	Young Gru (voice)
2015	Freeheld	Steven Goldstein
2015	The Big Short	Mark Baum
2016	Café Society	Phil	Completed
2017	Battle of the Sexes	Bobby Riggs	Filming

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996	The Dana Carvey Show	Various characters	8 episodes; also writer
1996-2011	Saturday Night Live	Gary, Big Head (voice)	14 episodes
1997	Over the Top	Yorgo Galfanikos	12 episodes
1998	Just Shoot Me!	Mr. Weiland	Episode: "Funny Girl"
1999-2005	The Daily Show	Himself	277 episodes
2000	Strangers with Candy	Teacher	Episode: "Behind Blank Eyes"
2002-2003	Watching Ellie	Edgar	16 episodes
2004	Fillmore!	Mr. Delancey (voice)	Episode: "Field Trip of the Just"
2004	Come to Papa	Blevin	4 episodes
2005-2011, 2013	The Office	Michael Scott	149 episodes Writer ("Casino Night" and "Survivor Man") Director ("Broke", "Secretary's Day", and "Garage Sale")
2007	The Naked Trucker and T-Bones Show	Brian	Episode: "T-Bones TV"
2011	Life's Too Short	Himself	Episode: "1.4"
2012	The Simpsons	Dan Gillick (voice)	Episode: "Penny-Wiseguys"
2013	Web Therapy	Jackson Pickett	3 episodes
2016	Angie Tribeca		Creator Executive Producer Writer ("Pilot") Director ("Pilot")

Video games

Year	Title	Voice role
2002	Outlaw Golf	Commentator

Awards and nominations

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Steve Carell Charities

Steve Carell supports the following charitable causes: Cancer, Autism.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]