Funnyman Steve Carell rose to fame as a correspondent on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show”, and has since become a comic star with NBC’s “The Office” and the surprise blockbuster comedy “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”. Born August 16, 1963 in Acton, Massachusetts, Carell was raised in suburban Massachusetts and attended Denison University in Granville, Ohio. After briefly working as a mail carrier after college, Carell considered law school but eventually decided to nurture his passion for comedy, starting out with the famed Second City improv troupe in Chicago where he met his future wife Nancy Walls.
Carell’s screen career didn’t take off until the late 1990s, though he did appear in the 1991 film “Curly Sue”. In 1996 he performed in the cast of the short-lived “Dana Carvey Show”, which saw the birth of the popular “Saturday Night Live” animated skit “The Ambiguously Gay Duo”. Carell voiced the role of Gary, while his superhero partner Ace was played by fellow “Daily Show” alum Stephen Colbert. Jon Stewart’s comedy news show put Carell on the map in 1999 as one of the program’s hilarious faux news correspondents. Like Colbert and the show’s other popular co-star, Rob Corddry, Carell was famous for delivering dry, absurd analysis of recent news events, while also co-hosting the popular segment “Even Stephven” with Colbert.
The Jim Carrey blockbuster “Bruce Almighty” saw Carell in one of his first major film roles, and since his five years on “The Daily Show” he has appeared in Woody Allen’s “Melinda and Melinda”, “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” (both with Will Ferrell), “Bewitched”, and as the star of 2005’s “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”, which he also co-wrote to the tune of a Writers Guild of America nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The film was an unexpected success, grossing over $100 million at the domestic box office and warming the hearts of critics usually cold to similarly silly comedy fare. He next won a Golden Globe for his performance in the NBC sitcom “The Office”, which is an American version of the hugely popular British show starring Ricky Gervais. NBC’s version has been met with considerable acclaim, primarily for Carell’s performance, but has not managed to make much of a dent in the ratings.
The rising superstar is currently the voice of Hammy the Squirrel in Dreamworks’ “Over the Hedge”, and can be seen in this summer’s indie comedy “Little Miss Sunshine” with Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear. The talented comic is considered one of the members of the ‘Frat Pack’, a group of successful Hollywood comedians that consistently work together, including Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, and Vince Vaughn.