Hollywood Hears Steve Carell

Steve Carell is going to have a Hell of a 2008. He'll be making you laugh on-screen this summer in Get Smart and The Office comes back in April, but the year really starts for this comedy star this Friday when Horton Hears a Who lands on thousands of movie screens. In the Fox film, Carell plays the legendary Mayor of Whoville, the first to make contact with the much-bigger Horton. Just being a part of the influential world of Dr. Seuss is a rush for any actor, but Horton Hears a Who has long been a favorite for kids of all ages. And now they will forever associate the Whos with Steve Carell. From The 40-Year-Old Virgin to The Office to Dan in Real Life and now Horton Hears a Who, Carell has proven to be one of the more versatile comedy actors working today. He recently spoke to The Deadbolt about what it's like to add Whoville to his filmography. Have a 'listen.'

Steve Carell on how Horton transcends for young children:

“How does it transcend stories for young people? You’re being very heady right off the bat (laughing). You know what I don’t think as a five or six-year-old you think about how things transcend anything, you just think about how it resonates. However much anything resonates with a five or six-year-old this is a book that I think resonates with kids and they don’t understand the metaphors and the sort of richness to it. But at the same time it resonates, there’s something very specific about the theme that I think even a little kid can understand and that is that everyone deserves an equal footing in life. And I think that’s a very basic tenant of being a creature of the world.”

Carell on limiting his performance to just his voice:

“I think there’s a freedom within the limitations. I think when you’re given sort of a structure and you can do anything within that structure there’s something freeing to that. As opposed to, you can do anything, anytime, anywhere, sometimes you don’t know where to focus, at least for me. Really, the heavy lifting is done by the animators. I think we provide as much as we can vocally, but then you see it and you see where they’ve taken whatever you’ve done vocally and it’s remarkable.”

On the voice work and animation coming together:

“It’s a huge leap of faith, because there you are and you don’t know how anything you do will sync up with what anyone else is doing. So it’s all based on how the director sees it and hears it. He’s the one threading these performances together, so you give him 1000 different variations on a scene and then he crafts it with the rest of the performances. So that, and I think it’s a huge leap of faith, because you can do things you think, ‘will that even work?’ and in terms of what he’s hearing, ‘yeah’.”

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