Steve Carrell Shows Off In His New 007 Role
Steve Carrell was interviewed recently to promote his new movie “Get Smart” where he plays a bumbling secret agent who can’t seem to do anything right. During the interview his sits alongside his costar – Anne Hathaway – where they both talk about their on-screen kiss. Carrell seems to blush they more they talk about it.
“Making out with him is the yummiest, lollipop, dipped-in-sunshine experience,” Hathaway begins. “Give me a break,” Carell interrupts, looking like he might jump off a ledge.
“Sunshine wrapped in a masculine wrapper,” Hathaway interjects, enjoying his pain. “That’s the only way I can describe it.”
“Now I’m going to be sick,” Carell says with the saddest deadpan eyes.
These two are the next big couple of summer, starring in a big-screen version of the vintage TV series from 1965-70 about a bumbling spy and his sexy sidekick (originally played by Don Adams and Barbara Feldon), both of whom work for a CIA-like agency called CONTROL.
” ‘Get Smart’ had been in development at Warner’s for a number of years,” producer Charles Roven says. “Our vision was an action comedy that took inspiration from the ’60s show but wasn’t a slave to it. The whole idea was we’re living in a time when there are a lot of things to look at socially. We needed smart jokes to make you think of where we are now in society.”
Original series honchos Buck Henry and Mel Brooks served as creative consultants on the film. “It was very nerve-racking working with these legends,” Roven admits. “We have such fondness for the original series.”
Yet Maxwell Smart had to be revamped. “Steve’s Agent 86 isn’t incompetent,” Roven says. “He’s a very intelligent person. We just set out to tell the story of how he became an agent. His mistakes come from a lack of experience in the field.”
Carell adds, “He has done a great job as an analyst, but now he’s promoted to the field. He’s green, but he’s anything but an idiot.”
The former Chicago theater actor says he didn’t watch old episodes of the TV series to prep for the film. “I steered away from it,” he says. “I didn’t want to do an impersonation of Don Adams. Frankly, I couldn’t improve on what he did, and the more I watched the show I’d be inclined to do an impersonation. He was so good and so definitive in the role.”
Carrell also had to work on his newfound action-star status. “I worked out and made my body a physical specimen to be admired. I’m fine-tempered steel,” he says. “At least that’s how most people refer to me now.
“Honestly, I tried not to get killed. That was my motto: ‘Steve, do not get killed today.’ ”
Yet there was Carell, hanging off a moving train with his body strapped to the back of it. “I’m riding on the train tracks by hanging onto a cloth banner,” he says. “I did this by lying on a platform on real train tracks with Anne Hathaway next to me. We weren’t even hooked into anything. We were just flying down the tracks.”
Was it dangerous? “No one mentioned it would be dangerous, although some people on the set sounded nervous,” he says. “Maybe that should have given me a little bit of concern.”
The movie opens this Friday.