Steve Carell Quotes - Page 5

Well, on a personal level, I would never want to take on a character who didn’t have some redeemable qualities. Even the worst of people, such as Michael Scott in The Office [Carell’s character in the US version of the Ricky Gervais sitcom], have some decent human qualities that you can latch onto.

How did I end up in films with people like Keira Knightley... all these beautiful leading ladies and me - it's kind of shocking.

I think there's a little bit of idiot in everybody and I think some people cover it better than others but I think I am very much a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve.

As soon as you start to talk about your own mannerisms, you are screwed. Because if you are aware of your own mannerisms, or beyond that even what makes any one thing funny to people, I really ascribe to that that if you start deconstructing it too much, it is immediately not funny.

I had a lot of coaches growing up that were very hard on the kids in the name of building character, but it could have the opposite effect on kids.

I wasn't a class clown, I never developed this comedic flair as a kid. Even when I decided to become an actor, it was just to be an actor, not necessarily a comedic actor. I wasn't that guy who struck out with women so he became really funny, and that's when the women started to like him.

I am always the type of person who is waiting for the other shoe to drop and for it to peter out and end. And if it does that's fine.

That's an interesting way to put it: an expectation of who you should be. More often than not, it's described as an expectation of who you are.

I find things funny that aren't self-aware. That don't know they're funny, and I think the same can hold true for drama. If you think you're in this tragedy and you play it for tragedy, there's a self-awareness there that I think takes you out of watching it and I believe it cuts both ways.

Anything nice that's said about me is diametrically opposed to who I am.

Everyone is flawed and everyone makes mistakes and is culpable.

When you approach it, and I hate sounding like the pretentious actor, but yeah, I think you have to find things within the character that are likeable, or at least human, and not to go at it with any sort of predetermined notions as to what that character is.

I don't do anything to try to change people's perceptions of me. I tend to think that's sort of an ego driven thing.

Being a leading man... that's like saying I want to be astronaut. That's not going to happen.

As a parent, all you want is for your kids to be safe but you don’t want to be over-protective and so you know that at some stage, they’re going to make their own mistakes and get hurt emotionally when all you want to do is protect them from that.

We always spend the summer together. My wife and kids, we always go back to Massachusetts and spend the summer there near where my wife and I both grew up. I wasn't willing to sacrifice the summer to go elsewhere.

It's a very familiar type of place where people either go to their house on the lake or they get together in different places. This was a normal, relatable place that I think a lot of people have in their childhood.

I always feel so pretentious talking about comedy and deconstructing it. It always feels somehow self-centred to talk about any sort of process.

People say, 'What's the secret to a marriage?' There's no secret - I think you get lucky.

'Anchorman'... is not grounded in anything. There is absolutely no heart to that movie, which I love.

I don't text, I don't have a Blackberry. Literally, I just have a cell phone that I haven't programmed and the whole Bluetooth. No. I don't even have an earpiece for my cell phone.

I tend not to be someone who's on all the time, or is always trying to make other people laugh.

I would like for my kids to at least have some familiarity with who I am: "It's the man from TV!"

I'm a fun dad, but I don't know if I'm the fun, crazy dad.

It's nice to find people who live on the fringe, finding one another and she's just unrelentingly funny.