During filming for his new movie Crazy, Stupid, Love., a romantic dramedy about a father attempting to remake himself after his marriage hits the skids, Carell found himself on the receiving end of some surprise high jinks from costar Ryan Gosling. Like smacking. And smooching.
When Gosling improvised a scene by administering a strike across the face, Carell didn't break. "All I wanted was for him to hit me harder and harder," the actor said. "It was beautiful."
Then Gosling decided to up the ante. "I just put this big Bugs Bunny kiss on Steve," Gosling recalled. "A lot of us were laughing, but Steve is just like, 'Don't kiss me. Slapping is fine, but I gotta draw the line somewhere'."
Crazy, Stupid, Love. is a sort of inversion of the actors' usual on-screen personae. Known for intensely dramatic parts in critically lauded films such as Half Nelson and Blue Valentine, Gosling here plays a swaggering, almost satirically over-the-top ladies' man in his first comedy. Carell - renowned for big comedic parts in movies such as Get Smart and Date Night - switches to a lower gear as a more serious fortysomething with relationship woes.
Filmgoers may be surprised to learn that this movie comes closer to the actors' actual personalities: Off screen, Gosling is often the cut-up and practical joker, while Carell's humour in real life is droll, if he's joking at all.
"There are those comedy guys who are always on and they're thriving between takes," costar Emma Stone said. "Steve is not that way. He's telling stories about his family."
"Boring. Yes, I'm boring," Carell said when told of Stone's comments.
Based on a dense script by Dan Fogelman and directed by Bad Santa writers Glen Ficarra and John Requa, Crazy, Stupid, Love. tells of suburban dad Cal (Carell), who learns in the first scene that his wife of nearly two decades (Julianne Moore) wants a divorce.
Cal consigns himself to moping around a local bar, until he runs into Jacob (Gosling), a larger-than-life Lothario who takes Cal under his wing (and across his open palm) and coaches him in the art of the bar-stool pickup.
Several colourful supporting characters, including Cal's precocious eighth-grade son Robbie (Jonah Bobo) and the opinionated law student Hannah (Stone) circulate too, in a cascade of relationships that explore themes of love and commitment, not to mention the rituals of male bonding, circa 2011.
"I thought this was all going to be Steve and me pal-ing around bars at night," Gosling said of his expectations of the shoot. "But it turned out to be Steve and me being sent to hit on these poor extras at 8am on a set."
It's natural to assume Gosling is playing a version of himself as a man-about-town, or at least playing off his public image as a movie-star bachelor. But he waves away the notion.
"I already have enough pressure. People assume I can build a house because of The Notebook," he said, referring to his character in the 2004 romantic drama who constructs a home for a girl.
Ficarra and Requa said they were sceptical Gosling was right for the part until an hour-long meeting in which the actor turned on the charm.
"He took a character that could have been sleazy and made him hugely likeable."
