BY DENNIS KING

NEW YORK — As Steve Carell seems poised to become his generation’s Jack Lemmon — an Everyman actor capable of playing broad comedy and self-mocking satire as well as subtle drama and touching romantic roles — he is characteristically modest about his burgeoning stature in Hollywood.

His transition from a sketch player in Chicago’s Second City improv troupe to TV fame (on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Office”) to supporting parts in film comedies such as “Bruce Almighty” and “Bewitched” has now led him to what they call in the movie business “above the title” status. That is, he now stars in and shares production and writing duties on many of his projects.

Since breaking through as a leading man in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” Carell has mixed up his movie resume with ensemble work (“Little Miss Sunshine”), big-budget studio parts (“Get Smart”), mainstream romantic comedies (“Date Night” with Tina Fey) and modest heart-tuggers (“Dan in Real Life”).

For his latest movie, the very smart, very grown-up comedy “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” Carell took an active role as producer as well as star and spearheaded some very unusual choices that appear to turn the term “romantic comedy” on its ear.

Unusual choices

During press interviews hosted by Warner Bros. at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Carell fielded questions about one of the film’s riskier choices — putting the script by animation writer Dan Fogelman (“Tangled,” “Cars,” “Bolt”) in the hands of offbeat co-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa.

As directors of the wildly off-kilter “I Love You Phillip Morris” and screenwriters of the decidedly dark “Bad Santa,” the pair hardly seemed an obvious choice to direct a multilayered romantic comedy about family, relationships and love.

“Crazy, Stupid, Love” tracks the travails of middle-age family man Cal Weaver (Carell) as his marriage falls apart and he struggles to hold together his relationships with his children, re-enter the dating world and find a new spark of hope in his life.

“We didn’t want it to be the typical romantic comedy. We didn’t want it to be a cliche,” Carell said. “And that’s something that the directors shared (with the producers). Their sensibility was very much in line with mine in terms of what we thought the movie could be.”

However, Carell did admit that some people found the choice of directors strange.

“I don’t find them strange at all,” he said. “You can say that a person is strange or their work is strange, but that’s not necessarily one and the same.

“We looked at ‘I Love You Phillip Morris’ and ‘Bad Santa,’ and we met with them and we talked about the script, and we found out how they envisioned it.

“In speaking with them, we all felt that this movie could walk that line between drama and comedy,” Carell said. “And that the drama had to be earned. It couldn’t just be laid in. We were all aware of the dramatic aspect of it being manipulative. That tends to happen sometimes in a romantic comedy, that the dramatic aspects don’t feel earned, they don’t feel like they’re connected to the story or the characters.”

Drama, comedy mix

The result in this case is a story that unfolds on several levels, with dramatic and comedic complications swirling around Cal as he tries to adjust to the midlife crisis of his restless wife (Julianne Moore). There are plum scenes involving Cal’s new lounge-lizard dating mentor (Ryan Gosling), a rowdy one-night stand (with Marisa Tomei), a strange love triangle involving Cal, his adolescent son (Jonah Bobo) and a smitten baby sitter (Analeigh Tipton), and a seemingly tangential storyline featuring spunky single-gal lawyer Hannah (Emma Stone).

Carell, married to actress-writer Nancy since 1995 and the father of two children, said it was easy for him to relate to Cal, the dedicated family man.

“Like Cal, I do believe in a true love, in a soul mate,” he said. “I believe my wife is my soul mate. And I think that sometimes you get lucky. You just marry the right person who will evolve with you, who will change with you and grow. And that’s the person I married.”

It was more of a challenge for him to portray Cal, the fledgling midlife player on the dating scene. As Carell recalls, when he was single, pickup lines did not exactly trip lightly from his tongue.

“I had absolutely no game,” he said with a strained laugh. “I was so lucky that I got my wife to marry me. I must have been having a really good day when we met, because I was pretty inept. I’m not a good person with the pickup line. I just don’t have that sort of self-confidence that radiates from me and is attractive and appealing. I married way, way above myself, too. So I kind of lucked out. I never went to a bar to pick up women. We were both working at Second City, and we became friends, and then lovers.”

Marketing success

As a producer, Carell admitted that he’s also concerned with the business side of the movie, and he has struggled with the question of how to market “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

“Do you target it as a romantic comedy?” he wondered. “Do you say it’s a dramedy? That’s such a weird word, and it can be off-putting. Do you say it’s a family comedy, because it does involve family? I think it’s more complicated than you might expect. It has more layers; it has more truth than you might expect. It says some very specific things about relationships and love without beating you up about them. Without banging you over the head with morals. It doesn’t go where you necessarily think it will.”

Since he left “The Office” at the end of last season after a long run and five Emmy nominations, Carell’s movie career seems to have taken off, he said.

“I’ve been offered some nice things, so I feel very fortunate,” he said. “This last year or six months, I think that’s when all of these new things came together. This fall, I’m shooting a movie under our (producing) banner called ‘Burt Wonderstone,’ about a Las Vegas magician. That’s a bigger, broader comedy. He’s sort of a jerky character.

“And I just finished a movie with Keira Knightley. It’s called ‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World,’ and it’s about a guy figuring out his life two weeks before Armageddon. And then later in August I’m going to do a movie with Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones called ‘Great Hope Springs.’ I play a therapist. Meryl and Tommy Lee are a couple in crisis, and I’m their therapist.”

So for now, Carell said, he’s crazy, stupid busy — and he loves it.

Listed on wimgo Movies under Comedy

Cal Weaver is a portrait of middle-age, matrimonial ennui. At home, he’s a bland, straight-laced family man who takes his pretty, high school sweetheart wife, Emily, for granted. At work, he’s a t-crossing, i-dotting cubicle drone who wears sneakers with his khakis and oversize sports jackets.

But in the shrewdly written, smartly directed and beautifully acted “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” Cal’s cozy cocoon home life and frumpy style get a harsh jolt of midlife angst when restless Emily (Julianne Moore, a lovely fount of fidgety frustration) announces in a restaurant one night that she wants a divorce.

That opening stanza in the film’s intricate domestic roundelay is played for rueful laughs, but it sets up a story (scripted by animation veteran Dan Fogelman) that’s informed by loads of traditional romantic comedy conventions that are then turned upside down and played as much for poignant drama as for warm-fuzzy humor.

Everyman comic actor Steve Carell portrays Cal with the sort of bewildered undercurrent of decency and regret that made his performance in 2007′s “Dan in Real Life” such a heartfelt and appealing breakthrough. In this, he continues his inevitable transition from TV performer to movie star.

Cast adrift in the garish, glassy world of singles bars — where predatory playboys such as the cool, sharp-dressed Jacob (Ryan Gosling in a revelatory comic performance) smooth talk their way through night after night of one-night stands — a morose Cal sinks deep into self-pity and listless drinking.

Then one night, for no apparent reason, Jacob takes pity on woebegone barfly Cal and decides to oversee a sartorial makeover and to school this forlorn schlub in the oily ways of picking up women in bars.

As Cal slowly morphs into a stylishly dressed player (through a series of playful montages), he struggles to keep up his relationship with observant 13-year-old son Robbie (Jonah Bobo, worldly wise), who is nursing his own romantic frustrations in a crush over his little sister’s 17-year-old baby sitter Jessica (former model Analeigh Tipton in a gangly, fawnlike turn).

On a parallel track, we occasionally look in on the dating disappointments of Hannah (the very hot and very busy Emma Stone), a bright law student who smartly rejects Jacob’s smarmy pickup lines and hopefully sets her cap for an uptight legal eagle (well played by singer Josh Groban).

Co-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (“I Love You Phillip Morris”) do a deft job of juggling diverse scenarios that have a way of dovetailing neatly as the story moves along (complete with a couple of sharp, startling plot turns).

Small but pivotal performances are delivered by Marisa Tomei as a wacky teacher who allows herself to be picked up at the bar one night by Cal, and by a smiling Kevin Bacon as Emily’s too ingratiating office mate and illicit lover.

The whole thing is held together with old comedy tropes seemingly made new by the vivid and spirited performances of the fine cast. And in the subtle, simple honesty of Carell’s performance, “Crazy, Stupid, Love” offers up a sane, intelligent romance that speaks enduring wisdom to all lovers, young or old.

— Dennis King

“Crazy, Stupid, Love”

PG-13

1:50

3 stars

Starring: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Julianne Moore.

(Coarse humor, sexual content, language)

Listed on wimgo Movies under Comedy

NEW YORK – Oddly enough for a guy who grew up in show business under the protective umbrella of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club, actor Ryan Gosling these days takes his philosophical cues from Warner Bros.’ cartoon cut-ups Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.

Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling

For Gosling, the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies duo of cool rabbit and flustered duck represent a sort of yin-and-yang approach to dealing with life’s challenges, and he professes, perhaps tongue in cheek, to gauge all his film roles by them.
For his role as smooth lounge lizard Jacob in the romantic comedy “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” Gosling said during press interviews staged by Warner Bros. that the formula held true.

He explained: A Bugs character, like the carrot-chomping rabbit, would be calm, flippant, insouciant, something of a wise guy and cool amid chaos. A Daffy character, like the often discombobulated duck, would be hyper, exasperated and usually the butt of some cruel scheme or joke.

“Crazy, Stupid, Love” gives Gosling a chance to employ this cartoon ethic in a rare comic performance. Primarily, he’s been celebrated as an intense dramatic actor in parts ranging from a young neo-Nazi in 2001’s “The Believer” to the disaffected young husband in last year’s “Blue Valentine.” In this role, his Jacob is a womanizer who decides to take Steve Carell’s divorcing schlub Cal under his wing and turn him into a hipster player.

“Jacob is definitely like Bugs Bunny,” Gosling said. “Every time I make a movie, I try to think what level of Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck is the character. It was one of my favorite dynamics as a kid. And in its purest form Jacob was Bugs and Cal was Daffy and then they switch roles about half-way through.”

The Canadian-born Gosling got his start in show business at an open audition in Montreal for the TV series “The All New Mickey Mouse Club.” In 1993 he was picked from 17,000 aspiring performers for a spot on the show, and in his two years in Mouse ears he roomed with co-star Justin Timberlake.

That may be where he picked up his affinity for cartoon philosophy. But Gosling merely shrugs vaguely when asked about the source of his Bugs-Daffy theory and insists that it’s really valid.

“For instance, my mother was having a hard time at her job and she didn’t know what to do,” he said. “And I didn’t know what to tell her. So I just bought her the Warner Bros. cartoons boxed set and I said, ‘if you’re ever in a situation at work and you don’t know what to do, just be Bugs. Never be Daffy.’ And she got promoted.”

So, what percentage of Bugs or Daffy is he?

“Oh, that varies,” he said with a wry grin. “I’m still trying to figure that out. It depends on the moment. It’s just a nice way to check in with yourself – when you need a check up from the neck up.”

- Dennis King

BY GENE TRIPLETT

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Two burning questions were being pondered at a recent news conference promoting “Dinner for Schmucks”:

First, how can you avoid being mean-spirited when you’re doing a comedy about making fun of people?

Second, what’s the true definition of “schmuck?”

“My grandfather used to call me a schmuck all the time,” Paul Rudd said in response to the second question.

“I thought it was a very intriguing story line,” Steve Carell said, responding to the first inquiry. “And I think it says something very kind, ultimately, and that’s what I responded to. I think it’s a very kind story and a great relationship between these two characters.”

Carell and Rudd (who’ve worked together in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”) play two men who form an unlikely friendship in “Dinner for Schmucks,” a wildly absurdist comedy from director Jay Roach (of “Austin Powers” and “Fockers” fame) based on the French film by Francis Veber, “Le Diner de Cons” (“The Dinner Game”).

Rudd plays Tim Conrad, an underling financial analyst who’s targeted for promotion, if he can meet the requirements of a monthly dinner at the mansion of his boss (Bruce Greenwood): He has to bring along the weirdest buffoon he can find.

At first, Tim’s conscience tells him that’s a pretty “messed up” thing to do, until he (literally) runs into Barry Speck, a geeky IRS employee whose hobby is stuffing dead mice, dressing them up in tiny human outfits and placing them in miniature scenarios resembling famous works of art, events in history or even his own life as he wishes it could be.

Tim’s conscience is forgotten. This is too good to pass up. He invites Barry to join the roster of rejects at the dinner party, and the grateful amateur taxidermist is honored, completely unaware that he’s about to be held up as an object for laughter and ridicule.

But the plan backfires when the well-meaning Barry, thinking he’s found a new best friend, unintentionally turns Tim’s life upside down. Ultimately, a guilt-ridden Tim begins to realize who the real “schmucks” are around the dining room table.

“We loved the original French movie, and we knew obviously that our version was going to be very different,” said David Guion, who co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Handelman. “But there was one that we did want to keep, and I think Steve mentioned it earlier, which is that sense of vulnerability and heart in that main character. That was something that was very key to us, because I think the movie without that could become potentially mean-spirited, and I think it was very important to us that it not be that.”

Someone asked if the role posed a challenge for Carell.

“The most challenging aspect of this was when we shot a scene where Paul had injured his back,” Carell said with a laugh. “We shot it for about a day and a half, and I had to hug Paul for a day and a half.”

“That’s a challenge for anyone,” Rudd agreed.

Someone else asked whether Carell derived any secret enjoyment out of playing with the mice in the dioramas created by the creature effects team of Stephen, Charles and Edward Chiodo (“Team America: World Police,” “Elf”).

“Oh, not so secret,” Carell said. “I was astounded by the detail in those mice dioramas. The man-hours and the attention to detail and the commitment to those dioramas … and I think, honestly, things like that really help you with a character. Because to sit in a room with all those and to look at how meticulously they’ve been put together really informs the character a lot. It really tells you a lot about who this guy is and his own attention to detail. So, I was very thankful and grateful to them for how exquisite those dioramas were.

“I hope at some point to own one for my house,” Carell said in all seriousness. “And I don’t know whether it’s the Ben Franklin or the Evel Knievel, but I would love to have a mouse diorama in my own home, displayed proudly.”

But what does all this have to do with “schmucks,” someone asked again, noting that the word has never been used in the title of a major motion picture before?

“For me, it’s kind of an ideal word for what the story is about because in modern usages it has two different meanings, like, ‘don’t be a schmuck’ can mean ‘don’t be a jerk,’ which is what Paul Rudd’s character is going through, and ‘don’t be an idiot,’ which is what Steve Carell is going through,” Roach said.

“And then in the end it kind of switches, because you find out Paul Rudd’s character is the one who’s kind of living in a deluded reality, and that Steve’s character is actually much wiser than he (seems) to be. So that, to me, is a funny word to say, but it also resonated across what the two character were about, what seemed to be providing the best conflict.”

But, the reporter insisted, the word “schmuck” also has another meaning, derived from the Yiddish, which some people might find offensive.

“Well, go right to the Jew,” Rudd said. “… It means hot dogs.”

Travel and accommodations provided by Paramount Pictures.