Steve Carell Quotes

Actors and magicians are both performers, and they represent things that are not necessarily who they are.

- Steve Carell

Steve Buscemi is hilarious. He's really, really good with improv.

- Steve Carell

In the United States, there is a restaurant called The Outback Steakhouse, and I could survive in there for several weeks at least, sustaining myself on bloomin' onions and, I'm sure, their legitimate and very Australian cuisine. In the real Outback? I give myself about 14 minutes.

- Steve Carell

I have no idea where my pathetic nature comes from. If I thought about it too long, it would depress me.

- Steve Carell

I play the baritone horn - which is like a mini tuba, and is the least sexy instrument you can choose, and I generally say I don't play one so I don't have to acknowledge it. I also play fife.

- Steve Carell

What kind of person would have a real craving for gummy worms?

- Steve Carell

Sending a handwritten letter is becoming such an anomaly. It's disappearing. My mom is the only one who still writes me letters. And there's something visceral about opening a letter - I see her on the page. I see her in her handwriting.

- Steve Carell

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

- Steve Carell

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

- Steve Carell

When you do an animated movie - at least the ones that I've been a part of - you never see any of the other actors. It's all done separately with headphones in a voice booth.

- Steve Carell

Once I moved to Chicago and started trying to get acting jobs, I just tended to book more things that were comedically based than anything else. I never had the preconceived notion, 'I will be a comedic actor.' I just thought, 'I'll go into acting and see what kind of work I can get.'

- Steve Carell

I had, like, two goals in my career: One was to try to get into 'Second City.' When I moved to Chicago, my goal was to try to work at 'Second City.' And beyond that, my goal was to make enough money as an actor to not do anything else but act, not have to go and wait tables again.

- Steve Carell

It's interesting when you're trying to create a character in animation. It's really a communal effort.

- Steve Carell

I've waited my entire life to be busy. Whenever I hear actors complain about being busy, I think, 'shut up.' Because you do, you wait to be successful or to be able to work.

- Steve Carell

I don't think my kids have to worry too much about me embarrassing them because that's not how I would want to grow up, with wacky dad showing up at school and performing for everyone.

- Steve Carell

I was sort of traumatized by girls in the third grade. Because there was a girl in my third grade class I had a crush on. I bought her a box of Valentine's Day chocolate. And I put it in her cubby with a note that said something like, 'I am deeply in love with you, Your Secret Admirer.' And I didn't sign my name.

- Steve Carell

I don't think something necessarily has to be mean or cynical to represent 'edgy.' I think 'edgy' can mean a lot of different things.

- Steve Carell

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.

- Steve Carell

Goalies almost never get credit for winning a game, but they always get blamed for losing a game.

- Steve Carell

It's not a master plan to do every remake and every recreation of icons. It's just what I've been hired to do.

- Steve Carell

You never saw Peter Sellers the actor trying to make you laugh. All he was doing was the character. What I'm saying is that I don't think you should know you're in a movie. I don't like it when actors are winking at the audience and saying, 'Right, isn't this funny? Are you with me?'

- Steve Carell

Even the most self-confident people, at one point of their lives, felt like outsiders or felt like they weren't being heard or seen or witnessed in some way.

- Steve Carell

Maybe the coolest people are the ones who don't care about being cool.

- Steve Carell

Everybody wants to be a Bond villain. That is the coolest. To be able to portray a Bond villain, that is the feather in any actor's cap.

- Steve Carell

I look at improvising as a prolonged game of chess. There's an opening gambit with your pawn in a complex game I have with one character, and lots of side games with other characters, and another game with myself - and in each game you make all these tiny, tiny moves that get you to the endgame.

- Steve Carell

I'm not unattractive, but I'm not a matinee idol. I think I have a very non-threatening look - I'm fine, I'm right in the middle.

- Steve Carell

If somebody takes the parking place you were waiting for, I tend to kind of let it roll off my back. Maybe I'm harboring a lot of something and it will all explode somewhere down the road, but I tend to just let it slide off my back.

- Steve Carell

I'm listening to a lot of Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, and Rihanna. A lot of pop female artists. I have to say I'm pretty well-versed in the pop female category.

- Steve Carell

Don't underestimate your kids. Don't be condescending, because they're children but they're not stupid.

- Steve Carell

I know I'm not a woman's fantasy man; I don't have to uphold this image of male beauty, so that's kind of a relief in a way.

- Steve Carell

My maternal grandma was a tough, tough lady and a stern woman, who lost her husband young and raised six kids by herself. She lived in a mining community in Upstate New York and ran a boarding house for miners. She took care of an entire family and miners who lived in the house as well.

- Steve Carell

For me, at least, all of my career goals, all of my focus, everything just shifted and the importance was my children, and that's where all the joy came from as well.

- Steve Carell

They love 3-D. It's fun to watch a movie in 3-D with your children or with a group of children because you see the kids in front of you from time to time reaching up. You see little hands reaching up to grab things that they think are right there. I think it's remarkable and it does obviously, literally, add another dimension to the movie.

- Steve Carell

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

- Steve Carell

From cheesecake on a stick to meat skewers to deep-fried bananas on a stick - there are no plates anymore. In Los Angeles, everything has become a corn dog. Actually, corn dogs still work. But most other food should be stickless.

- Steve Carell

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

- Steve Carell

My parents had a certain resolve to them that I don't see as so prevalent today. Through good times and bad, they were committed to one another. Their relationship wasn't something to be constantly examined or picked apart.

- Steve Carell

I had a friend who, after 25 years of marriage, found himself trying to date again, and it was completely different. Everything had changed, and he had to reacquaint himself. It was funny even talking to him about it. For someone who has been out of the loop, it's a different world.

- Steve Carell

My father is Italian, and I never met my paternal grandparents. The family name was 'Caroselli' and it was changed in the mid '50s. I think they wanted to assimilate, which was pretty common, although I love the name 'Caroselli.'

- Steve Carell

Reading a book, watching a movie, going to a play, it's transporting, and very, very exciting. And to be a part of that, creating things with your imagination, whoa.

- Steve Carell

I'm a taker in terms of jokes. I love to hear a good joke, but I don't retain jokes. I'm not a good teller of jokes.

- Steve Carell

Whenever you see people talking about how real they are or how normal they are, it seems odd to have that self awareness that you could potentially not be normal.

- Steve Carell

A healthy body means a healthy mind. You get your heart rate up, and you get the blood flowing through your body to your brain. Look at Albert Einstein. He rode a bicycle. He was also an early student of Jazzercise. You never saw Einstein lift his shirt, but he had a six-pack under there.

- Steve Carell

I joined an improv group in college, which was a lot of fun. After I graduated, I moved to Chicago to try to get into the Second City.

- Steve Carell

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

- Steve Carell

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

- Steve Carell

There's such a freewheeling nature to 'Second City,' and the greatest thing about 'Second City' was having a sophisticated audience night after night who appreciated what it was. They knew it wasn't all going to be great when you improvised, so they were very forgiving that way.

- Steve Carell

Nothing to me feels as good as laughing incredibly hard.

- Steve Carell

Relationships shouldn't be disposable. If there's something worth saving - not always the case, some relationships are irreconcilable - but if there is something that you determine is worth saving, then try to do that.

- Steve Carell

I think in most relationships that have problems, there's fault on both sides. And in order for it to work, there has to be some common ground that's shared. And it's not just one person making amends.

- Steve Carell

My wife is way funnier than I am. As much as I don't really feel I share a sense of humour with my family, I definitely share one with her - we find the same things funny.

- Steve Carell

There's plenty of room for all sorts of movies and all sorts of comedies, so I never saw that as a competitive thing. I think there's room in the marketplace for everything.

- Steve Carell

There's very little you could do to prepare to be a correspondent on 'The Daily Show,' because it's not being a journalist, it's not being an actor. It involves elements of both of those things, but they're not required necessarily as job experience. It's helpful if you know how to improvise, but again, not a requirement.

- Steve Carell

Your brain, like your tongue, is a muscle. Practicing thinking by yourself really helps develop your brain, which you need throughout your day. I like to practice my thinking in a darkened room, alone.

- Steve Carell

You project a version of yourself to the public to protect and insulate yourself a little bit. Actors come up with a version of themselves in order to protect the real person.

- Steve Carell

I'm not good with pickup lines or flirting. I don't have that kind of self-confidence or natural charisma.

- Steve Carell

Because I went from the 'Daily Show' where I was a fake news guy on a fake news show, to 'Bruce Almighty' where I played a news guy, to 'Anchorman' where I played a news guy, now I'm... yeah, I tend to gravitate towards suits.

- Steve Carell

For the better part of my adult life, I proudly avoided nerd/nimrod/goober status. I was always just cool enough.

- Steve Carell

Divorce is fairly common these days, and I think many times people disregard the emotional impact that divorce has on a couple and a family, because it happens so frequently.

- Steve Carell

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.

- Steve Carell

The best food is in Chicago. There are great restaurants everywhere, from fancy places to burger joints.

- Steve Carell

When I first started looking at Twitter, I followed people like Steve Martin, who will just write the funniest non sequiturs now and then, which I thought was really fun. That's kind of the road I've taken. Every now and then, something comes into your mind and you put it out there. It's very innocuous. I think it's kind of fun.

- Steve Carell

Oh, I so don't care about the podium at the Oscars. I've stood at the podium at the Oscars and that's close enough. To be a presenter is as close as I need to be.

- Steve Carell

Like most people, I have painful memories of trying to fit in as a child. I wore, said, and did pretty much what everyone else did.

- Steve Carell

Six-year-olds are very wrapped up in their own lives, and that's the way it should be.

- Steve Carell

Everybody should be normal. Everybody should be nice. I think they go hand in hand, and that to me is the default setting.

- Steve Carell

I don't even know if I have kind of a personal, like a take or a mental manual of how I'm raising kids. It's really - I think with everybody, it's just day-to-day and you just try to deal with every situation as they come.

- Steve Carell

I don't feel that I have to control every aspect of things that I appear in. You learn a lot performing someone else's writing.

- Steve Carell

If I'd had a great level of success early on, who knows how I would have responded. I might have been a complete jerk.

- Steve Carell

I don't think of myself as funny - I don't fill up a room with my humor... I would fail miserably as a stand-up comedian.

- Steve Carell

I think anyone loves to play a character that is either evil to a certain extent or has a real definable character flaw. Those are always really fun, and, I think, funny.

- Steve Carell

In my wildest dreams I never thought - well, I never thought I'd work.

- Steve Carell

I remember my wife wanted me to go see 'Contagion,' and I was like, 'Oh my God, why would I want to see that movie?' I mean, I'll just have nightmares and it will freak me out. It turned out that I really enjoyed it; I thought it was very well done.

- Steve Carell

Talking to my wife, we stare at each other, saying, 'How is this happening? Why is this happening? Why now?' It's nothing I ever aspired to.

- Steve Carell

I don't know how other people perceive the lives of actors, but my life is fairly ordinary. I go to work, I come home, I put my kids to bed. If I'm home in time for dinner, I have dinner, and then it's bedtime.

- Steve Carell

Style advice? Always wear clothes... that are... clean, for starters. An added bonus if it is pressed as well. Unless you are wearing clothes that are supposed to look rumpled.

- Steve Carell

Whenever I hear someone describe something as a 'kids movie' or a 'family movie,' it immediately has a negative connotation in my mind because I think, 'Well, as an adult, I wouldn't go see it by myself, because it's purely for children and it holds nothing for me and it's simplistic and it's kind of easy.'

- Steve Carell

If we were meant to read for enjoyment, would God have created television? Read as it was intended - for exercise. The more you read, the more you expand your - what's the word I'm looking for? - your stockpile of words. You must have a stockpile of words that you can pass along to your children for their stockpile.

- Steve Carell

I love my wife dearly, and, therefore, I've never cooked a meal, romantic or otherwise, for her.

- Steve Carell

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.

- Steve Carell

Taste in comedy, like fashion, changes all the time.

- Steve Carell

Whenever I'm offered something, I always read the script and meet the director. I still appreciate just being considered.

- Steve Carell

People generally have sex fairly young, and probably younger than they should be having it.

- Steve Carell

I've always enjoyed watching characters that aren't aware that they're doing anything funny. And I think that inherently makes them funnier.

- Steve Carell

You know what Disneyland is known for? The Big Turkey Leg. People walk around with enormous deep-fried turkey legs. Like little kids, three-year-old kids eating these five-pound turkey legs.

- Steve Carell

I was a bad dater, and up until 8th grade I went to an all boy's school. So, by the time I hit high school I was a bit freaked out by women in general.

- Steve Carell

It was kind of like they were just giving us a toy to play with, to do whatever we wanted with.

- Steve Carell

Children are very smart, in their own stupid way. A child's brain is like a sponge, and you know how smart sponges are.

- Steve Carell

I'd love to do Broadway some day. Before I started doing television I was just a primarily a stage actor, but I haven't done it in a while.

- Steve Carell

When someone is good, but it doesn't seem like their world will collapse if they don't get the part, it's more appealing. It's like dating someone: You don't want someone who's too into you.

- Steve Carell

Being an action star is all I had ever hoped to be. I ultimately knew I would be an action star.

- Steve Carell

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

- Steve Carell

You're doing your kids a disservice if they do get everything they want because that's not the way life's going to go, and I think kids have to have some reality.

- Steve Carell

Everyone is flawed and everyone makes mistakes and is culpable.

- Steve Carell

I'm not a crazy Vegas guy. I'm not a gambler.

- Steve Carell

I've thought a lot about success, because it's very strange to me that I've been successful.

- Steve Carell

You're so in love with your children that you'd do anything for them; that's not necessarily the best thing.

- Steve Carell

I'll do whatever I can do to remain employed. I'm just not precious about doing comedy or doing drama. I never want to do something in order to prove to other people what I can do.

- Steve Carell

I think when someone who's known for doing drama does a comedy but just tries to be funny, that's a mistake.

- Steve Carell

My job doesn't define my kids in any way. When we go to places, it's about them and it's about us as a family. I think they're proud of me, but I'm just Dad.

- Steve Carell

I don't like to get angry. It doesn't make me feel good. It is very human, but it's also a loss of control, and I like to have that kind of control.

- Steve Carell

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

- Steve Carell

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

- Steve Carell

You know, what's funny to one person is not at all to someone else.

- Steve Carell