Steve Carell
Birthdate: Aug 16, 1962
Birthplace: Concord, Massachusetts, USA
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.
Personal Details
A native of Concord, Massachusetts, Steve Carell was raised by mother and psychiatric nurse Harriet Carell and father and electrical engineer Edwin Carell. Carell’s Italian family name was originally Caroselli. His maternal uncle, Stanley Koch, helped develop the cathode ray tube. Steve Carell schooled in Concord at Nashoba Brooks School, The Fenn School Boys’ Academy, and Middlesex School.
He attended and graduated from Denison University in Ohio with a Bachelor of Arts in History. Since 1995, Carell has been married to actor-comedian Nancy Carell, whom he met while he taught an improv comedy at Chicago’s legendary comedy company, The Second City. The couple has two children, an older daughter Elizabeth and a younger son John. His height is 5’ 9”. Carell’s net worth is $80 million.
Filmography
actor
Previous (15)
- 2024 | Despicable Me 4asGru
Despicable Me 4
Gru, Lucy, Margo, Edith, and Agnes welcome a new member to the family, Gru Jr., who is intent on tormenting his dad. Gru faces a new nemesis in Maxime Le Mal and his girlfriend Valentina, and the family is forced to go on the run.
- 2024 |
- 2022 | Minions: The Rise of GruasGru
Minions: The Rise of Gru
The untold story of one twelve-year-old's dream to become the world's greatest supervillain.
- 2018 |
- 2018 | Welcome to MarwenasMark Hogancamp
Welcome to Marwen
A victim of a brutal attack finds a unique and beautiful therapeutic outlet to help him through his recovery process.
- 2018 | Beautiful BoyasDavid Sheff
Beautiful Boy
Based on the best-selling pair of memoirs from father and son David and Nic Sheff, Beautiful Boy chronicles the heartbreaking and inspiring experience of survival, relapse and recovery in a family coping with addiction over many y...
- 2017 | Last Flag FlyingasLarry 'Doc' Shepherd
Last Flag Flying
Thirty years after they served together in Vietnam, a former Navy Corpsman Larry "Doc" Shepherd re-unites with his old buddies, former Marines Sal Nealon and Reverend Richard Mueller, to bury his son, a young Marine killed in the ...
- 2017 | Battle of the SexesasBobby Riggs
Battle of the Sexes
The true story of the 1973 tennis match between World number one Billie Jean King and ex-champ and serial hustler Bobby Riggs.
- 2017 | Despicable Me 3asGru
Despicable Me 3
Gru meets his long-lost, charming, cheerful, and more successful twin brother Dru, who wants to team up with him for one last criminal heist.
- 2015 | The Big ShortasMark Baum
The Big Short
In 2006-2007 a group of investors bet against the US mortgage market. In their research they discover how flawed and corrupt the market is.
- 2014 | Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad DayasBen Cooper
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Alexander's day begins with gum stuck in his hair, followed by more calamities. However, he finds little sympathy from his family and begins to wonder if bad things only happen to him, his mom, dad, brother and sister - who all find themselves living through their own terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
- 2013 | Anchorman 2: The Legend ContinuesasBrick Tamland
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
With the 1970s behind them, San Diego's top-rated newsman, Ron Burgundy, returns to take New York City's first twenty-four-hour news channel by storm.
- 2013 | Despicable Me 2asGru
Despicable Me 2
When Gru, the world's most super-bad turned super-dad has been recruited by a team of officials to stop lethal muscle and a host of Gru's own, He has to fight back with new gadgetry, cars, and more minion madness.
- 2013 | The Incredible Burt WonderstoneasBurt Wonderstone
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
A veteran Vegas magician tries to revive his career after his longtime partner quits, he gets fired from his casino act, and an edgy new 'street magician' steals his thunder.
- 2012 | Hope SpringsasDoctor Feld
Hope Springs
After thirty years of marriage, a middle-aged couple attends an intense, week-long counseling session to work on their relationship.
Some Facts About Steve Carell
Patriotic Music: With his family, Steve Carell played the 18th-century instrument, the fife, in American Revolutionary re-enactments of the 10th North Lincoln Regiment of Foot, or the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment of Great Britain.
Job-Job: Steve Carell worked as a postal service mail carrier, but soon quit after being told he worked too slowly.
Role Reversals: Although Stephen Colbert was Steve Carell’s understudy at The Second City comedy company in Chicago, Carell worked side-by-side with Colbert when he became a “correspondent” on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, from 1999 to 2005, before Colbert himself took over the show as host.
