Steve Carell is coming for your children. As the voice of the "evil" Gru in DESPICABLE ME, the star of THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN and THE OFFICE has created a perfectly lovable supervillain for kids to laugh at and, ultimately, cheer. Gru dreams of striking fear into the heart of law-abiding citizens everywhere, but generally settles for mild annoyance on a sort of grand-ish scale. His proudest accomplishments: swiping the Times Square jumbotron, the Statue of Liberty (from Vegas) and the Eiffel Tower (ditto). It's all rather innocuous. But when a rival wrongdoer steals an Egyptian pyramid (and cleverly replaces it with an inflatable replica), Gru is suddenly inspired to heist something humans might actually miss: the moon. It's a fun world for Carell to immerse himself in - a colorful variation on the work of Charles Addams that's never too scary or mean-spirited for the little ones (it helps that Gru's villainous nature is consistently undercut by the shenanigans of his bumbling yellow minions). Should the film catch on with families, its success could propel Carell to that rarefied level of movie stardom occupied (at one time or another) by Eddie Murphy, Steve Martin and Mike Myers. When I chatted briefly with Carell a couple of Saturdays ago, he expressed a humble satisfaction with the direction of his career while noting that he doesn't want to cling to his "A-list" status. What's important to him is the quality of the material and his collaborators - which explains why he's eager to work with DATE NIGHT co-star Tina Fey again, and, fingers crossed, revisit his pals on the Channel 4 News Team. In the below interview, we discuss his involvement in developing the character of Gru, the necessity of ANCHORMAN 2, and his thoughts on how Michael Scott should exit THE OFFICE. It's a quick interview, but I was grateful for the time to talk with one of my favorite working comedic actors.

Mr. Beaks: When we talked to Chris Meledandri a few months ago, he said your voice for Gru was a combination of Bela Lugosi and Ricardo Montalban. How did you arrive at that duo?

Steve Carell: That's very, very kind of him. I think that's probably what he heard. It certainly wasn't what I had in the back of my head. (Laughs) You know, I just thought it had to be an accent that's a little bit threatening, a little bit sinister, but also kind of funny and silly. Because it's a kid's movie, you don't want it to get too dark. But you do want to have a little edge to it.

Beaks: The nice thing about Gru is that, while he's the bad guy, the kids are never once afraid of him.

Carell: Oh, that's good. We wanted him to be evil, but not really a bad guy. It's a weird sort of line to walk, too. You wonder how far you can go. When do you lose the audience? When do kids or parents pull back and say, "No, no. That's not appropriate. That's not good." I think they struck a good balance in the sense that he is creepy enough, so that when he makes his turn, you're cheering for him. You're glad that this other side is coming out.

Beaks: It's nice to have a villain as a protagonist in a kids' movie.

Carell: Yeah, it doesn't happen very often.

Beaks: One of the things that's always interesting to me about animated films is that they often assemble a dream team of voice actors, but the talent never really gets to perform together. When you see the film, do you ever find yourself wishing you could've batted the ball around with people like Julie Andrews or Russell Brand?

Carell: It's a little strange. You generally never see anybody until you start promoting it or go to the premiere - then everyone shakes hands and congratulates each other on the wonderful job. It's a little strange because you're doing it in a vacuum; you're standing in front of a microphone and imagining how a scene might play out, and you're giving them as many options as you can. But you just don't know. You're really at the mercy of the director and the editor and the staff that's going to create the animation. You're just one tiny aspect of the movie, one tiny piece, and you're just trying to give them as many options as possible to fit in with all of the other pieces.

Beaks: Was the design of the character impacted at all by what you were doing with the voice?

Carell: I'm not sure. The look of the character evolved a little bit. It was a slightly different look from when I first saw renderings. I think this is pretty typical in terms of animation. They'll do some basic mock-ups of the characters to see what the characters are going to look like - what their facial expressions will look like and how they're going to move. Early on, the character wasn't quite what they were hoping it would be. I think it was a little less accessible and might've been a little too dark. They changed it and tweaked it a bit before it became the Gru you see in the movie. They had those sketches, but I just started in on the voiceover, and I think the character and voice happened simultaneously.

Beaks: I don't know how much you can say about this, but Adam McKay recently talked about trying to put this ANCHORMAN sequel together at Paramount. He said he'd essentially gotten all of you guys to lower your quotes a little so they could make it for a reasonable budget, hoping that the studio would go for that. They did not. Is there any regret on your end? And are you holding out any hope that this might come back?

Carell: I hope so. I really do. I think of any movie that I've been involved in, this one lends itself to a follow-up. Selfishly, it was probably the most fun I've had doing anything. Those guys... that was one of the best experiences of my life. It was the kind of job where you laugh until you cry every day; you can be certain that when you show up to work for the day that, at some point, you will be in tears with laughter. So, selfishly, I would like to do it. We're all friends; I think it would just be fun. I hope they can work it out. The four of us are absolutely committed to doing it if they can work it out. Maybe some day it will come to pass.

Beaks: We can only hope. I always assumed the difficulty in getting you guys back together would be the fact that you've all become big stars. It's strange that it played out the other way.

Carell: Well, we'll see. Things can turn around in a moment. You never know. I hope at some point they work it out because... I really think it could be great. The movie did well when it came out, but it's really grown in popularity in the intervening years.

Beaks: It's one of the most quoted films. It's become like CADDYSHACK in that regard.

Carell: Man, it was fun. That was just a joy all the way through.

Beaks: Once your film career took off after ANCHORMAN and THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN, did you immediately start developing vehicles for yourself? And are you looking to maintain this "comic lead" persona?

Carell: Well, sure. If I can. It's not anything I want to cling to. If it continues to go this way, great. But I don't want to be too precious about it. I just finished a movie with Ryan Gosling and Julianne Moore, and that's sort of in a different vein. I hope to work with Tina Fey again; we're trying to develop a movie together that we'd like to do at some point. There are various irons in the fire. We'll just have to see what pops up next.

Beaks: And that new film is [CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE] directed by John Requa and Glen Ficarra.

Carell: Yes.

Beaks; They're terrific writers. I know they didn't write this film [Dan Fogelman did], but does it have that dark, cutting quality that made BAD SANTA so memorable?

Carell: I hope so. I think they definitely have that sensibility. With any moment that might be potentially sentimental, they always find a way to undercut it and not let it get too much so. They're really good. I thought they were great directors: very efficient, very supportive of actors, and fun. It was a really fun set to be on.

Beaks: Was it tightly scripted, or did they leave room for improv?

Carell: Oh, there was room to play. And surprisingly... you look at someone like Ryan Gosling, who you would not expect to be a great improviser and really funny, but he is! He has fantastic comedic instincts. I think he's going to be really great in this.

Beaks: So where do things stand with your exit from THE OFFICE? How are things going to play out for Michael Scott?

Carell: I don't know. I have to talk to the executive producers to see how the next season will play out. It's my hope that it's done in sort of a subtle way. I don't want a big sort of fanfare or finish. The aspect of the show that I like the best is when it examines the minutiae of office life and the mundane qualities of this environment. People leave jobs for all sorts of reasons, so I don't think it needs to be some overly-dramatic or overly-written event. I think it could be very simple, the way his tenure at the office ends. That's what I would prefer.

Beaks: Maybe a melancholy exit?

Carell: Perhaps. But without putting too fine a point on it. Because I think that's life: there's an ebb and flow, and things change. Just don't get too heavy handed with it. That's what I would prefer.

I can't imagine Dunder Mifflin without Michael Scott (or Michael Scott without Dunder Mifflin). Though there will surely be the temptation for a catastrophically humiliating departure, I hope they go with Carell's idea. While you're waiting on the final season of THE OFFICE, take the kids out to see DESPICABLE ME this weekend - and know that, if you opt for 3-D, you won't get LAST AIRBENDER-ed. Faithfully submitted, Mr. Beaks