Few actors manage to pull off Anchorman levels of comedy one minute and unlikeable, unfunny characters the next with such ease as Steve Carell. Watch his turn in The Office followed by his most recent outing in The Way Way Back and you'd forget the characters were played by one and the same person.
But that's the key to career longevity, right? Not getting pigeon-holed into just being the funny guy or just being the serious character actor.
Next on the actor's to do list is Foxcatcher in which he plays a real life murderer beyond recognition of any 'I Love Lamp' type fare that's gone before.
Carell stars here as the real life John DuPont who became friendly with Olympic wrestling brothers Mark and David Schultz played by Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo respectively. DuPont then murdered Ruffalo's character David in 1996.
For the role, Carell appears aged, with a prosthetic nose and a visibly unrecogniseable physicality.
Commenting on Carell's unlikely casting, director (who also helmed Money Ball) Bennett Miller said to Entertainment Weekly:
"If I say I'm going to make a movie about a guy who's a schizophrenic murderer, there are probably a dozen actors who would immediately appear on anybody's casting list. And Steve would not be on any of those lists. And that’s a good thing. Because it's unexpected… John DuPont was a character who nobody thought was capable of doing something as horrible as he did. And I did not want to cast somebody who would feel dangerous in that way."
Check out the first pic of Foxcatcher above.
