Steve Carell has revealed he picked up a terrible acting habit during his time on The Office.
The Despicable Me star explained that the mockumentary style that the comedy was shot in has affected the way he interacts with the camera. This is in large part is due to the entire cast on the comedy show using the camera as a comic device.
“I have never had a job where I didn’t look into the camera at some point,” Carell explained, as he sat down to talk with his former castmates Angela Kinsey (Angela) and Jenna Fischer (Pam) on their podcast about the show, Office Ladies.
Kinsey responded that she’d also struggled with the same habit in her work after The Office. She told Carrell: “Same for me! I actually had a director say ‘Um, Angela. You just looked right down the barrel.’”
Elsewhere in the podcast, which focuses on the hosts and guest’s reaction to rewatches of the show, Carell revealed that he only watched one minute of the original UK series. This was because he wanted to avoid taking inspiration from Ricky Gervais’ own version of an office manager, David Brent.
He told them: “I chose not to watch the British version because I didn’t want that to influence whatever this version was going to be. [Gervais] was clearly so great at it, he was such a distinctive character. I didn’t want to do an impression of him.”
Undoubtedly, the original UK version of The Office was groundbreaking. However, Carell received six Emmy nominations for acting for his work on the show – and it even continues to have a huge impact on TV and streaming. Last year it was revealed that the show was one of Netflix’s most-watched of all time.
‘Office Ladies’ releases episodes weekly and has featured other stars from the show, including Rainn Wilson (Dwight), Mindy Kaling (Kelly) and John Krasinski (Jim).