After a stint with Chicago’s renowned Second City theatre troop, Carell made his film debut in 1991 in director John Hughes’ saccharine kid flick 'Curly Sue'. He spent the subsequent decade writing for the 'Dana Carvey Show', teaching improvisational comedy, performing with Second City and working as a correspondent for 'The Daily Show With John Stewart'.

In 2003 he landed his breakout film role in 'Bruce Almighty' opposite Jim Carrey. Two years later he shot to international stardom as the titular nice-guy-nerd in smash hit comedy 'The 40 Year Old Virgin', a movie that he also co-wrote.

On the small screen Carell has received fulsome critical and popular acclaim — not to mention a Golden Globe and an Emmy — for his portrayal of boss-from-hell Michael Scott in the stateside version of 'The Office'.

Now Carell demonstrates his versatility by starring opposite Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette and Alan Arkin in the darkly comic but ultimately uplifting 'Little Miss Sunshine'. The proverbial ‘big hit at Sundance’, it follows the fortunes of a barely functional family on a riotous, incident-filled road trip across America to attend a pre-teen beauty pageant.

In 'Little Miss Sunshine' you play Frank, a gay, suicidal Proust scholar. Quite a change of pace for you. How do you prepare for a role like that?

You read some Proust. I think it’s like anything else. I just started thinking about who this guy was. When I read the script I thought a lot about what had brought this person to this point in his life. The important aspects of it for me were that he’s an intellectual, a scholar. He is the self-proclaimed Proust scholar in the United States, which lead me to believe he had quite an ego and tends to separate himself from other people because he thinks so highly of himself. He’s removed himself from other people. He has this unrequited love and it blows up in his face and he tries to do himself in, and that’s where we find him at the beginning of the story. For me it was thinking about all of those things and sort of relating it to things in terms of my own life, the things that have made me as depressed as I’ve ever felt.

Have you ever experienced that level of despair, suicidal depression?

It’s hard to say. I don’t think so, certainly not that I can consciously recall. But I think we can all relate to that kind of despair, whether we’ve actually felt that kind of serious clinical depression. We can all relate to what it feels like to go through at least something approaching that level of despair and having to navigate life with that burden and that hollowness. Those were the things I was thinking about: where he begins, to give him a starting point so there could be incremental growth throughout the movie.

Were you looking for a different type of role or was it simply this particular script that grabbed your attention?

I was looking specifically for a suicidal Proust scholar, and I just got lucky.

A gay suicidal Proust scholar.

Exactly. Well, you know, that’s the other thing. I never approached the character in terms of his sexuality. In my mind, he was just a person who was in love and got rejected. That’s a universal theme that everyone can empathise with. But no, I wasn’t looking for a departure or any kind of breakout character role. I just thought it was a really good script. It made me laugh, and it touched me. I thought the script was sweet, and at the same time very unsentimental. There are a lot of grey areas within the characters. I never got the sense that I’d seen these characters before; they never struck me as stock characters. There seemed within each of them there was a great deal of humanity and pathos, but not in a cloying way.

How much influence did you have on the character? Was there any opportunity to improvise — and how did you come up with Frank’s hilarious signature running style?

In terms of the dialogue, there really wasn’t much improvising at all because, we all felt, the script was in such good shape; we didn’t want to change any of the words. Everybody felt the words were right so we tried to stick very closely to the script. In regard to his signature run, I just thought, if this guy is an intellectual and a scholar who has probably spent more of his life in the library than on the sports field, he’s not going to be an athlete. So I figured I’d come up with the least athletic run I could manage. There wasn’t a lot of ad-libbing, but within that there still seemed to be a lot of freedom to play with each other. A great deal of the movie involves just reacting and silent moments between characters. There’s a lot that wasn’t specified on the page with stage directions or dialogue.

And what about the beard? Was that to make him look intellectual or suicidal?

I could say the beard made him look suicidal and then I’ll get all sorts of letters from the bearded community of America. No, in my mind it just seemed it would be something that guy would do. He would grow a beard, and a well-coiffed beard at that, to give himself a little more gravitas. I was thinking in terms of what that guy, as a professor, would consider professorial. I looked at it in terms of why the character would grow a beard — and it was fun not to have to shave for six weeks.

What was your reaction when you heard there was a bidding war at Sundance over the film?

I’d never been there before so the whole experience was new to me. The movie played really well, but I had no frame of reference. I didn’t know whether all movies played well there, whether it’s a crowd of film-lovers who are going to react that way to everything they see. And then that night there seemed to be a flurry of activity and everybody seemed really excited, especially the producers and the investors. But, again, I wasn’t aware of what it entailed. It wasn’t until much later that I figured out what a big deal that night was. The best part of it for me was that the directors (Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris) are the sweetest people in the world. They’d worked on this movie for five years before they even started filming it and on opening night they got up n stage to field questions and they got a standing ovation. Just to see in their faces how proud and happy they were was wonderful. It really felt like this community of people welcoming them in and saying: ‘Thanks for creating this. We like you!’ That was nice; I felt very, very happy for them.

Do you feel there’s something more to the movie than just a dysfunctional road movie? Do you think it has something to say about the winners-and-losers society we live in these days?

You know, I hear the word dysfunctional a lot in connection with this movie, and I think in terms of this family it’s interesting because on the outside they seem to be a very dysfunctional family, but on the inside I don’t think they are. Individually they are dysfunctional people, they have their problems and foibles and are fighting their own personal demons. But as a unit, they sort of work. They’re able to get their broken down VW bus started and to get across country and, without giving anything away, to get grandpa to where he needs to go. Against all odds they are able to work as a unit and, in that sense, are a functional family. Which I think speaks to your question. I think in the face of adversity, even the most seemingly screwed-up people, the most screwed-up family can work, can function. And dysfunctional is a misnomer in a lot of ways because every family is dysfunctional. I don’t know a single family that is what it appears to be or what people hope they appear to be as a family. There are all sorts of problems with families. I think this is just a slice of life in that respect.

Have you, like Frank, ever been busted by someone you know while buying porn?

Have I ever been busted by someone I know while buying porn. Um, no. Next question.

Did you think 'The Office' would have the effect on your career that it has?

I didn’t know whether 'The Office' was going to make it past six episodes, let alone have an effect on anybody’s career. I thought it was good and I knew Greg Daniels was a really smart producer and a very funny guy and he’d hired a lot of really funny actors and writers. But we were definitely up against it because obviously we were faced with comparisons to the BBC version right off the bat. I think everyone was very dubious about recreating what is now a classic TV show. Most people did not have high hopes — us included, frankly. We were just trying to do the best we could and, with any luck, turn out a good show. But we had no aspirations to exceed the original show in any way, or even to match it. We just thought it was a really funny premise and hoped we could do something with it. So no, I didn’t expect anything. And the fact that it’s incrementally grown and is gaining a strong following is great.

Has Ricky Gervais asked you to be on 'Extras' yet?

He hasn’t, but he has written an episode for this season of 'The Office'.

And how is it?

I haven’t read it yet but I hear it’s really funny.

Ricky Gervais has said how impressed he is with you guys and noted that they only did twelve episodes and you’ve already done far more.

Yeah, we’ve done twenty-eight. Ricky has been nothing but supportive all the way through. I’m looking forward to doing the episode he wrote.

Will he ever appear on the show?

I don’t know. All I know is that he and Stephen [Merchant, co-creator of 'The Office'] wrote an episode. You hear rumours here and there but I haven’t read anything specific.