Michael Scott, is that you? 
 
 Steve Carell is looking a lot more dapper than he did during his days on The Office and his fans are taking notice. While promoting Despicable Me 3 with co-star Kristen Wiig, the 54-year-old actor turned heads last week when he stepped out in London, England, wearing stylish shades, a fitted blue sweater, khaki pants and trendy leather sneakers. 
 
 
 
 WATCH: Kristen Wiig and Steve Carell Win Golden Globes With Super Depressing Best Animated Film Intro 
 
 
 
 ET's Carly Steel spoke with Carell on Saturday at the Despicable Me 3 premiere in Los Angeles, California, and he hilariously reacted to the buzz surrounding his new look. "I am so sick of people just looking at me for my physical attributes," the father of two quipped. "It's just genetic. There's nothing I can do." 
 
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 Carell added, "I'm bursting with pride. That's very nice." 
 
 Needless to say, the Twitterverse couldn't help but compare Carell's new sense of style to that of his character, Cal, in Crazy, Stupid, Love. In the 2011 romantic comedy, Jacob (Ryan Gosling) gives Cal a makeover in an effort to boost his confidence after his split from his wife, Emily (Julianne Moore). 
 
 
 
 MORE: Steve Carell Breaks All Our Hearts With Office Revival Joke on Twitter 
 
 
 
 "Honestly take your Goslings and your Zayn Maliks and give me 2017 Steve Carell," one Twitter user commented on Carell's style. 
 
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 "Someone plz tell me when Steve Carell got grey and turned into George Clooney's brother," another fan wrote. 
 
 
 
 EXCLUSIVE: Steve Carell Shares the Funniest Father's Day Gift He's Ever Received 
 
 
 
 The tweets didn't stop there! "If you don't want Steve Carell at his 2006, you don't deserve him at his 2017," read one tweet. 
 
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 "2017 Steve Carell is 2011 Steve Carell after his wife screws David Lindhagen in Crazy, Stupid, Love," another fan proclaimed. 
 
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 One star who took notice of Carell's charisma early on was Emma Watson. In April 2015, the 27-year-old actress penned a handwritten note, praising the Golden Globe winner. "You were pure genius in Little Miss Sunshine (one of my all-time favorite films), my brother became obsessed with you after Anchorman," she wrote. "I wanted to marry you or have you adopt me after Crazy, Stupid, Love, I hated that guy you played in The Way Way Back, and then you were mind-blowing in Foxcatcher." 
 
 Here's more of Watson's letter to her celebrity crush: 
 
 Despicable Me 3 hits theaters on June 30. 
 
 Related Gallery ||||| He might be bound to The Office for now, but it's on the big screen where he truly makes our guts ache. 
 
 Steve Carell doesn't have a face for the movies. It's too plain, too pale, like a weatherman from New Jersey, which is how he landed a supporting role in Anchorman. His features don't carry the comical devilishness of Jim Carrey, or even the mischievousness of an Adam Sandler or Will Smith. If you were to run into him on a street corner, oblivious to his fame, you wouldn't turn back for a second. He's too ordinary to make a lasting impression. 
 
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 All of this might work to his favor on the small screen, where he plays the clueless boss Michael Scott on The Office. It should backfire on the big screen, where everything is epic now, and so 3-D. But comedy isn't a branch of mathematics—the formula actually works in reverse. The Office might have the critical backing and the Emmys, but it's a dwindling import that nobody will talk about in 10 years (do they still even talk about it now?). It's on the big screen that Carell has made his mark, from The 40-Year-Old Virgin to Get Smart. Which brings us to the latest example, Date Night. 
 
 The premise is like Charlie's Angels without the angels: a New Jersey husband (Carell) and wife (Tina Fey) go out for a peaceful dinner in Manhattan, are somehow mistaken for a couple blackmailing a corrupt district attorney, and spend the rest of the night on the run. If the stars had been—for example—Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, it wouldn't be worth catching even on TBS. But Carell is such the unusual film actor (he got his start on The Daily Show, after all) that he can make even the most mundane line pop. He's also unmatched when it comes to physical comedy—i.e., the chest waxing in the 40-Year-Old Virgin. Paired with Tina Fey (a writer who also played a fake anchor on Saturday Night Live), the movie easily succeeds as mainstream popcorn entertainment. 
 
 Has there been any other comedian at the movies who continuously takes a tired premise and makes it so delicious, your gut hurts? (Or maybe it hurts from all the laughing.) Because Carell has such a gentle onscreen presence, he brings out the best in his female leads. Who knew that Anne Hathaway had action-babe potential before Get Smart? Or that Catherine Keener could be so Julia Roberts–lovable in Virgin? He also transformed the normally dramatic Juliette Binoche in Dan in Real Life, a better romantic comedy than anything Hugh Grant has done in the last 10 years. In Date Night, Carell is the cake batter that holds up Fey's icing. Their breezy banter is a throwback to old-fashioned movie stars, which is funny, since she's not a conventional movie star either. When she cast herself opposite longtime friend Amy Poehler in Baby Mama, it was like watching an endless SNL skit. 
 
 Carell might not get the onscreen recognition that he deserves—yet—but give him time. Like Ben Stiller, he's a thinking man's comic, with the potential for crossing over into drama. Stiller is now getting rave reviews for his performance as a tortured man-boy in the Noah Baumbach film Greenberg. But it doesn't seem so great when you compare it to what Steve Carell accomplished in Little Miss Sunshine. When Carell's character appears at the start of the movie, with bandages around his wrists from an apparent suicide attempt, his eyes are full of sorrow in a way that almost makes you take a step back. Who knew that Steve Carell had such range? If he ever takes on Hamlet, sign me up for a front-row seat. 
 
 © 2010 ||||| For an actor with such a flourishing television career, Steve Carell has been pretty active on the big screen. As he's worked on "The Office" over the past six seasons, the actor has also found time to star in half a dozen live-action features and voice two animated films, including his newest hit "Despicable Me" and his upcoming comedy "Dinner for Schmucks," slipping in movie shoots during his short television hiatuses. 
 
 
 
 In reporting on a story about his new film "Dinner for Schmucks," we asked Carell about the upcoming shift in his career that will take him off the "Office" to an even more fertile big-screen life. Although he's starred in a reasonably wide range of films -- "Get Smart," "Dan in Real Life" and "Evan Almighty" among them -- Carell has worked a similar tactic in many of them: the gap between what his character believes and what the audience knows, milking that alternately for comedy and drama. 
 
 
 
 But Carell, who next stars in a marital-crisis comedy opposite Julianne Moore called "Crazy, Stupid, Love," says that when he makes his big-screen decisions post-"Office," he won't be looking to branch out for its own sake. 
 
 "I just never want to be precious or pretentious about choosing something in order to switch it up, or do a 180 just to show people what I'm capable of," he told 24 Frames. (Incidentally, he didn't sound like a man who had an interest in returning to the series, as some of the bargaining-ploy theorists have had it.) 
 
 As for the reaction to his departure from "The Office" and his landmark Michael Scott character -- which has ranged from abject horror to mournful head-shaking to those conspiracy theories -- Carell said it's caught him a little off guard. 
 
 "I'm surprised by it, frankly. I didn't think it would be that big a deal," the actor said. "I'm just not renewing my contract. I'm surprised there's any sort of hubbub about it." 
 
 --Steven Zeitchik 
 
 Twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT 
 
 Photo: Steve Carell and Paul Rudd in "Dinner for Schmucks." Credit: Paramount 
 
 
 
 RECENT AND RELATED: 
 
 Steve Carell says he's leaving 'The Office' after next season 
 
 Steve Carell sends an 'Out of the Office' message 
 
 For Steve Carell and Tina Fey, 'Date Night' rings true 
 
 'Despicable Me' eclipses 'Twilight'
– Steve Carell has been promoting Despicable Me 3 lately, and fans have noticed something: Um, he's hot. The former Office star's gray hair is making him into quite the "silver fox," as many have pointed out on Twitter and elsewhere. (Consider the BuzzFeed article "Guys, Steve Carell Just Got Insanely Hot And I Don't Know How to Feel About It," or this sample tweet: "Hot Steve Carell is your ex boyfriend who is honestly just doing better without you.") Carell, 54, reacted to all the hoopla at the film's LA premiere Saturday when Entertainment Tonight brought it up. "I am so sick of people just looking at me for my physical attributes. It's just genetic. There's nothing I can do," he joked before adding, "I'm bursting with pride. That's very nice." On Tuesday night, Jimmy Fallon also brought it up during Carell's appearance on the Tonight Show. "My wife finally said she's in love with me," he joked about his wife of 22 years. Asked how it feels to be in the same club as George Clooney and Anderson Cooper, Carell said, "There's a bracelet you get. Mine says Steve and on the other side of the bracelet, it says, 'hunk of man meat.'"