Steve Carell interview: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World "I do probably get quite a few interesting comedy scripts, but reading Seeking a Friend for the End of the World I had the same reaction as when I read Little Miss Sunshine," recalls Carell. That was a subject matter that I had never imagined I would explore and this, too, was a story I couldn't get out of my head. I kept thinking about it after I had read it. Written and directed by film-maker, playwright, actress and singer Lorene Scafaria, Seeking a Friend... explores what people will do and how they will feel when humanity's end is near. In the film, an enormous asteroid is heading towards Earth and nothing can prevent the collision. "The subject matter and the fact that it was essentially a comedy was interesting," says Carell, "working out how to strike that balance between what would be dramatic and what would be comedic. But in the script it was little things that stayed with me - people having a yard sale or people still going into their office to work - because it asks the question, what would you do? How would people react in general? How would you react? Which raises another question: how does he think he would react? I would just want to spend that time with my family, be surrounded by the people I love. It is a morbid thought, but it also metaphorically gets you thinking about how you live your life. We're here for a finite time and you have to embrace it, have to enjoy it while you can, and so I think it is a very uplifting theme in that way. Although Carell's character is a risk-dodger who learns his lessons slowly, the actor himself leans the other way. I don't think I am so much like Dodge in that respect because I tend to try to live in the moment and I try to mix it up a little bit. Before joining Chicago comedy troupe The Second City in 1991 and then going on to make his name with the sketch series The Dana Carvey Show and the satirical news programme The Daily Show, which he joined in 1999, Carell planned a career in law, "and it was my parents who said, 'Maybe you should consider something that you truly enjoy as opposed to something that you think we'd like you to be." I think that any time you move in a slightly different direction than what is expected, it is a little bit risky. Carell goes on to cite the US Office, the multi-award-winning adaptation of the Gervais-Merchant original, as another example. After a six-year stint, his final episode aired in April last year. "The easy thing to do would have been to stay," he concedes. It was a great job and a great character and great cast and friends, but I felt I guess, in a sense, the risky thing to do was to leave it and to see what else there was to try. He tried Seeking a Friend... for a start. The film makes use of the truth that it is often momentous global events that cause shifts in how we perceive the world, and our place in it. The end of the world is an extreme example, Carell admits, but he subscribes to the general theory. "If I think of a momentous shift in my own life, I definitely think of the birth of Annie, our daughter," he says. Born in 2001, she was his first child. It shifted my perspective on my career and on life. All of a sudden, I started getting jobs left and right because I didn't care as much. My auditions were much better because I was more relaxed. It was around this time that he started working with hot-shot comedy producer Judd Apatow on the script for The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which in turn led to his career-making performance in The Office and his subsequent high-earning Hollywood career. I wasn't putting so much pressure on myself. All I wanted to do was to get home to my kid and that same thing happened to a number of my friends. When they had children, their careers opened up because they weren't just putting so much emphasis on trying to be good and were just allowing it to happen. That sounds like good advice for those hoping to persuade their partner that now's the time to try for a baby. "Hey," he laughs. Don't you put that on me! Seeking a Friend for the End of the World" opens on July 13