Call it a case of smart casting
It’s no mystery: The casting of Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart pulled together all the dangling threads of the long-awaited “Get Smart,” the new not-quite-a-remake of the ‘60s TV spy comedy.
“I turned the project down several times over the years,” says director Peter Segal.
“Even though I was a fan of the show, I didn’t feel the pieces were coming together, and it was too beloved a series to mess with, unless those pieces were just right. But one day they come to me and say, ‘Steve Carell’s on board to play Max.’ And I said, ‘Hmmm …’ “
Carell seems almost too obvious a choice to re-create the bumbling, oblivious CONTROL agent whose ability to foil villains was as inexplicable as Agent 99’s attraction to him.
But the new Maxwell Smart has less in common with the old Smart (as played by Don Adams) than the old Smart does with the socially hopeless Michael Scott, Carell’s insufferable character on NBC’s “The Office.”
His Max is a sensitive sort who desperately wants to move out of his analyst job and into field work as a gunslinging, shoe-phoning agent.
“He’s not a bumbling idiot … he’s a proficient guy, but a bit counterintuitive. And a bit overeager,” says Carell. “But he has a good heart, even if he maybe takes himself a little seriously.”
One thing is clear, he says: “I’m not doing Don Adams. I’m not doing an impersonation. I felt there was no reason to do a knockoff of his character because … he did it fantastically well.”
He was faced with the same dilemma, Carell says, when “The Office” was transplanted from the U.K. to America:
“I watched Ricky Gervais,” he says, “and I thought, ‘There’s no way I can do that. I won’t be as good or anywhere near as good as him in that character, so I won’t play that exact character. I’ll play a version of that character. I’ll try to take some of the essence of that character and use that.’ “
The joy with Max, he says, is all about someone doing what he always wanted to do – something to which Carell can relate after building a film resume that also includes “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Dan in Real Life” and “Evan Almighty.”
“I’m in a movie with The Rock!” he says. “And I was in a movie with Juliette Binoche and now two with Alan Arkin.
“I’ve done little independent movies and romantic comedies and there were all the R-rated romantic comedies, and now this is an action comedy. Everything is a new experience and so exciting. And fun.”
The birthday bunch
Actor Ralph Waite is 80. Singer-actor Kris Kristofferson is 72. Actor Michael Lerner is 67. Journalist Brit Hume is 65. Actor David L. Lander (“Laverne and Shirley”) is 61. Singer Todd Rundgren is 60. Actress Meryl Streep is 59. Actress Lindsay Wagner is 59. Actor Graham Greene is 56. Singer Cyndi Lauper is 55. Actress Tracy Pollan is 48. Actress Amy Brenneman is 44. Actress Mary Lynn Rajskub is 37. Talk show host Carson Daly is 35. Actor Donald Faison (“Scrubs”) is 34. Actress Lecy Goranson (“Roseanne”) is 34. TV personality Jai Rodriguez (“Queer Eye For The Straight Guy”) is 29.