Steve Carell

One of Hollywood’s more versatile comic and dramatic actors, Steve Carell (birthname: Steven John Carell) has carved out one of the most successful filmographies blending comic satire, comedy character portrayals, and dramatic studies, likening him to previous comedy-to-drama actors like Peter Sellars. From 1996 to 2004, Carell developed a cult following off of his regular stint as a “correspondent” on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show hosted by Jon Stewart.

At the same time that he helped launch the American remake of the British comedy series, The Office (2005-2013) on NBC, Steve Carell established himself in a range of hit comedies, starting with the supporting role of hapless weatherman Brick Tamland in Adam McKay’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), with Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd, and Fred Willard, continued in the sequel, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013), with the additional cast members of Dylan Baker, Kristen Wiig, and James Marsden.  

Off the success of Anchorman, Steve Carrell developed The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) with co-writer and director Judd Apatow, launching Carell as a star and earning him a Writers Guild best screenplay award nomination. Carell’s first step into blending comedy and drama came with Dan in Real Life (2007), with Juliette Binoche, Alison Pill, and Dane Cook, and followed it up with the spoofy Get Smart (2008), re-creating the classic Don Adams TV series from the 1960s, and earning $230 worldwide. Steve Carell made a pivotal career choice, joining the vocal cast of the megahit animated comedy, Despicable Me (2010), as the lead voice of Gru alongside Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Miranda Cosgrove, Kristen Wiig, Will Arnett, and Julie Andrews.

This launched the phenomenally successful Illumination Entertainment franchise, including Despicable Me 2 (2013)—the most profitable movie in the century-long history of Universal Studios–Minions (2015), Despicable Me 3 (2017), Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022), and the planned Despicable Me 4 (set for 2024), with total global returns for the first four movies nearing $3.7 billion.

Steve Carell took a major artistic leap forward in 2014, portraying murdering billionaire John DuPont—with loads of makeup—in Bennett Newman’s powerful true-crime study, Foxcatcher, with Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum. For his role, Carell earned an Academy Award Best Actor nomination. He next appeared in Peter Sollett’s drama, Freeheld (2015), with Julianne Moore, Elliot Page, and Michael Shannon, then reuniting with Adam McKay for his ripped-from-the-headlines The Big Short (2015), with Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, and Ryan Gosling, and the first of two McKay-Carell projects (including 2018’s Vice) nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Steve Carell returned to comedy, Woody Allen style, in Allen’s lighter-than-air Café Society (2016), with Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart, marking Carell’s second visit in three years to the Cannes Film Festival, where Allen’s movie opened the 2016 edition.

Having previously portrayed actual people in Foxcatcher and The Big Short, Carell did it again with the notorious tennis figure Bobby Riggs in Battle of the Sexes (2017), opposite Emma Stone, and then as Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in McKay’s richly inventive if controversial bio-portrait of Dick Cheney, Vice, with Bale, Amy Adams, Sam Rockwell, Allison Pill, Tyler Perry.

Steve Carell further explored his dramatic side with indie filmmaker Richard Linklater in the box-office disappointment, Last Flag Flying (2017), with Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne, and in the family drama, Beautiful Boy (2018), co-starring Timothée Chalamet, in which Carell again re-created a true life character, as he did in the box office bomb, Welcome to Marwen (2018), directed by Robert Zemeckis.

Steve Carell starred in Jon Stewart’s much-anticipated political satire, Irresistible (2020), co-starring Chris Cooper, Mackenzie Davis, Topher Grace, Natasha Lyonne, and Rose Byrne, and opening in a limited theatrical pattern via Focus Features (in the U.S.) and Universal Pictures (ex-U.S.) before VOD streaming. Carell returned as the voice of Gru in the sequel to Minions (2015), Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022), with the voices of Pierre Coffin, Taraji P. Henson, Michelle Yeoh, Russell Brand, Lucy Lawless, Dolph Lundgren, Danny Trejo, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Julie Andrews, and Alan Arkin, and which turned in a spectacular return of $940 million globally for Illumination Entertainment/Universal Pictures.

Filmmaker Wes Anderson cast Carell as a motel manager in the sprawling ensemble of Asteroid City (2023), including Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, and Jeff Goldblum, and which premiered at the Cannes film festival but lost money for distributors Focus Features/Universal Pictures with a $54 million return on $25 million costs.

Carell joined the voice cast of director/writer/producer/actor John Krasinski’s live-action/animated fantasy for Paramount Pictures, IF (2024), including Ryan Reynolds, Cailey Fleming, Fiona Shaw, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Louis Gossett Jr., while proving to be a box-office dud with a global return of $176 million against a $110 million budget.

 Steve Carell returned to the familiar voice of Gru starring in his sixth movie in Illumination Entertainment/Universal Pictures’ Despicable Me franchise, Despicable Me 4 (2024), co-directed by Chris Renaud and Patrick Delage and featuring the new cast voices of Will Ferrell, Joey King, Stephen Colbert, and Sofia Vergara.