After exiting the hit TV series “The Office,” Steve Carell is starring as a leading man in upcoming films opposite Keira Knightley, Olivia Wilde and Meryl Streep. And the former “Daily Show” contributor says even he finds the trajectory of his career as a Hollywood star “shocking.”
“How did I end up in films with people like Keira Knightley … all these beautiful leading ladies and me—it’s kind of shocking,” he tells Parade.com.
In the new interview, he also recalls his “worst gig” before making it as an actor: “At one point, I was a wine telemarketer,” Carell says. “Talking people into buying wine on the phone is not an easy job to begin with, but when you don’t know anything about wine and you really don’t drink it, it becomes even more difficult.”
He adds when he left “The Office” last year, he was so overwhelmed with emotion, he couldn’t look at the parting gifts the cast gave him.
“My last day, [the cast] gave me a send-off that was overwhelming,” he recalls. “So much so [that] for the next couple of weeks I couldn’t even look at all of the things I’d been given… the cast made me a scrapbook, and each of them had a page in it related to me and to our relationship. The first couple of days, I tried to crack open some of that stuff and I just could not get through it. It was overwhelmingly emotional.”
Carell next stars with Knightley in the apocalyptic comedy “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.”