Here's video of the only(?) time he has totally lost it and cracked up on camera, during a piece on the Daily Show. It's probably the funniest segment in the show's history.
AVC: Do you find it constricting to have to be in character throughout the entire show?
SC: There are practical ways in which it's limiting. If something goes wrong on the show, it's not as natural to deal with it in an improvisational way than if I were just myself. If I were just myself, I could just call us on our own ineptitude. There's another layer that you have to lay on top of a mistake on my show, because the show is perfect. From our point of view, there are no mistakes. "This is good, that's a discovery. We don't have the footage? Fine, you know what? I'll just do this. I'll draw a picture of what he looks like." We did that once on the show when we didn't have the footage that we thought, so I drew a picture of the footage that I thought we had, and the graphic that I thought we had that we didn't. And those were discoveries in rehearsal, based on what I thought we had on the show. I'm not sure if I could have done that on the fly during the show. Whereas Jon is Jon, and Jon can name the moment in ways that I eventually will, but this character isn't so much in my bones that I can do it automatically now. It's also a freeing sense. Jon couldn't say on camera that he thinks Rosa Parks was overrated, because that's a hateful thing to say. But this character can get away with it, because the audience on some level knows [he doesn't] mean it.
AVC: How did you become involved with Second City?
SC: When I was an undergrad, I met this guy named Del Close, who was sort of a godfather of comedy in Chicago, and a lot of people had sort of a guru relationship with him, which I did not have. I never got to know him well enough. But he and a woman named Charna Halpern were starting the ImprovOlympic, and at the time, it was a competitive, freeform, one-act, long-form improvisation. And they were looking for colleges to do competitions at their theater, the Annoyance Theater by the Belmont el stop in Chicago. And a friend of mine said, "We should go down and check this out," and he already knew something about Del and Charna. And I went and saw it once and was stunned by how much I wanted to go do it. We formed a team—we would go down on Tuesday nights and perform for audiences at the cabaret, and at the same time, I was taking more of a formal theater training. And when I got out of college, I wasn't gonna do Second City, because those Annoyance people looked down on Second City because they thought it wasn't pure improv—there was a slightly snobby, mystical quality to the Annoyance people, the ImprovOlympic people.
But I needed a job when I got out of college, and a friend of mine was box-office manager at Second City, and she said, "Well, just come answer phones." And then I found out classes were free if you work there, and I wanted to do something other than try to go get an acting job… I was so afraid of not being hired. And I found out that I really liked the people who worked there, that they were really trying hard to do something new and interesting. The form there was a little ossified, but it wasn't for lack of trying. It was just sort of like there was an inertia. I met some wonderful people, and it was a happy accident. I hadn't intended to end up there. I meant to be a serious actor with a beard who wore a lot of black and wanted to share his misery with you.
AVC: Were you drawn to Second City's history?
SC: Nope. I knew nothing about Second City. I liked comedy as a kid. When I was a kid, I'd go to sleep to, like, Bill Cosby albums every night. I'd listen to Bill Cosby Is A Very Funny Fellow… Right!, and Wonderfulness, which are two of his most famous albums. Then the next night, I'd flip them over, 'cause it was the old stackable turntable. I loved George Carlin and Dean Martin. I was one of those kids who had every comedy album. But I didn't know anything about Second City at all.
AVC: Was your time at Second City good training for the rest of your career?
SC: Absolutely. Improvisation in general is good, and improvising material into themes, turning the material into something codified and repeatable, taught me scenic structure and dramatic gambits that work and things that are appealing both as a performer and an audience member, like you know, what does "want" really mean in a scene, and how do you achieve your want, and how is that expressed, and how do you achieve closure? Those are all things that I learned after just doing the same scenes over and over and over again over the years, with my own ability to change. Creativeness, and also taking things from improvisation into those things, originally because you learned what had to go and what had to stay, and you learned it in front of a live audience. It was a great education about what I was able to do and what audiences enjoyed, and the limits of self-indulgence, and the need to please and how you balance those. I found out what my strengths were.
AVC: What were they?
SC: I think one of my strengths was my ability to serve other people's ideas. I'm proud of my ability to understand what somebody else is trying to do and help them achieve it, because part of the aesthetic of improvisation is service. We don't lead, we only follow. You never say no. Serve the servant, follow the follower. And that's very valuable in your life, as well as very valuable in your work. I'm damn proud of my ability to help other people achieve their ideas. The weakness I learned about is that I get locked into the high-status game—the teacher, the doctor, the lawyer.
AVC: You were Steve Carell's understudy?
SC: Understudy at Second City doesn't mean what it means elsewhere. When he was out of town, they put me in. But, yeah, that's fine, I'm honored to be his understudy. My first gig on Mainstage, which is the main theater there, was going in for him. He was a great guy whose material was fun to do, and I was happy to pretend that I had written it.
AVC: Did you guys hit it off immediately?
SC: Steve's a very pleasant guy, but he's very private. I can't say that we ever hung out. He's an incredible guy to perform with. I have amazing respect. He always gives absolutely everything he has. I've never seen him phone anything in. And he'll try anything. They needed somebody at The Daily Show, and I said, "You guys should hire this guy named Steve Carell, there's nothing he can't make funny." It startles me how funny he can make things.
Posted by: junosand on Feb 1st, 2006 | 2:43pm