By the time Steve Carell’s star turn in The Office came to an end, in 2011, the character-actor-turned-leading-man had already proven his bankability as a movie star with a string of hits including The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Get Smart, Crazy, Stupid, Love, Little Miss Sunshine, and the Anchorman franchise. And then, in a surprising about-face, he swiftly changed tack towards darker fare in films such as 2014’s Foxcatcher, which earned him an Academy Award nomination, and two more in 2018 – Beautiful Boy, in which he played the father of a drug-addicted son, and Vice, in which he portrayed George W. Bush’s former Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld.

Most recently, he further decimated his Mr. Nice Guy screen persona with his role as a disgraced TV anchor in The Morning Show alongside Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon. He switched gears yet again, returning to comedy with Space Force, which he co-created with showrunner Greg Daniels (The Office, Parks and Recreation). As General Mark Naird, who oversees a newly formed branch of the army, his mission is to dominate the final frontier with the President’s primary directive – to get ‘boots on the moon’ by 2024 – ringing in his ears.
In stark contrast with his character, Carell prefers his feet firmly on the ground with his wife and children. “I am a homebody. I like hanging out, I don’t need to go into space,” he said during an HFPA Zoom interview in 2020. Since this role, he landed the lead in The Patient, in which he plays a therapist who lost his wife and finds himself held prisoner by one of his patients, a serial killer hoping to curb his homicidal urges.

Carell has raised his children: Annie, 21, and Johnny, 18, with his wife of 27 years, actress and SNL alumna Nancy Walls, 56, who played her husband’s girlfriend in The Office, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin’s sex therapist. She also played a role in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.
Born in Boston, the youngest of four brothers, his father was an electrical engineer, and mother, a psychiatric nurse. While at Denison University in Ohio, his interest in acting sparked and he joined the student-run improvisational comedy troupe. Deciding to take comedy seriously, in 1991, he joined The Second City troupe where he would not only meet his future wife, but future collaborator Stephen Colbert, who was his understudy. In 1996, he joined The Dana Carney Show. The Daily Show followed, and then in 2005 he landed the lead role in The Office, where he would play the impossibly clueless staff manager, Michael Scott, based on Ricky Gervais’ character, David Brent, in the original version of The Office.
Carell has amassed one Golden Globe win for Best Actor in a TV Series Musical or Comedy for The Office, in 2006, and a further eight nominations including a Best Actor Drama for Foxcatcher, in 2015 (along with an Academy Award nomination) and A Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for The Big Short, in 2016, and Battle of the Sexes, in 2018.
With many awards under his belt, for this comedian, leading man and character actor, it seems there isn’t anything Carell can’t do. Now that he’s celebrating another milestone in his much-celebrated life, on August 16, we can’t wait to see what he does next.
HFPA reporter Raffi Boghosian pays tribute to the 8-time Golden Globe nominee and winner on his 60th birthday: