Top 5 Steve Carell projects to watch apart from The Office to celebrate the actors birthday

Steve Carell is the rare shape-shifter who can make a cringe pause funnier than a punchline, then turn around and break your heart. From middle-management chaos as Michael Scott to an Oscar-nominated descent into menace in a biography, he has stretched TV, film, and even animation without losing that off-kilter warmth we all clocked from day one.

If you only knew Steve Carell through Michael Scott, allow us to introduce to his interesting resume. As he turns sixty-three, here are five of his best projects that totally negate his The Office character.

Despicable Me franchise

Steve Carell’s Gru is the kind of character who shouldn’t work on paper but absolutely soars on screen. A bald, pointy-nosed supervillain with a wobbly, undefinable accent, a closet full of identical black scarves, and an army of banana-obsessed minions, he sounds like pure cartoon chaos. But in Carell’s hands, Gru becomes one of animation’s most oddly lovable icons.

Carell portrays him as a man chasing validation in the strangest ways possible. Every exaggerated vowel, every sputtering rant, every deadpan pause makes him both absurdly funny and weirdly relatable. His “evil” plans are giant gags, but the heart comes when the façade cracks, when the wannabe world dominator reveals himself as an anxious, soft-edged dad just trying to figure it all out.

Over four films, spin-offs, and an endless parade of minions, Steve Carell keeps Gru fresh, never letting the character calcify into a cliché. Instead, he’s become a pop-culture totem, memed, quoted, Halloween-costumed, and adored worldwide. Gru may dream of world domination, but Carell’s performance already achieved it.

Available to watch on: Disney+

Beautiful Boy

Steve Carell’s turn in Beautiful Boy feels less like a performance and more like a lived-out moment. As David Sheff, he embodies the ache of parenthood when love collides with something unfixable. There’s no safety net of comedy here, no sly grin to break the tension. Instead, Carell becomes a man hollowed out by helplessness, clutching at fragments of hope as his son drifts further into addiction’s orbit.

It's one of his rare performances that aren't rooted in anything comedy, but rather switches up humor for a heartbreaking performance that will leave you sobbing, and feeling for the father who's trying so hard. Timothee Chalamet's portrayal of Nic Sheff compliments him perfectly, making it one of the most profound roles in both their careers.

And of course, special mention to Steve Carell's performance of John Lennon's Beautiful Boy.

Available to watch on: Prime Video.

The 40 Year Old Virgin

Steve Carell’s turn as Andy Stitzer in The 40-Year-Old Virgin is the definition of lightning in a bottle. On paper, it sounds like a throwaway gag: middle-aged guy who’s never had any action becomes the butt of endless jokes. But Carell, who also co-wrote the film, flips it into something way more surprising: a comedy that’s both raunchy and weirdly tender.

As his breakout role, The 40-Year-Old Virgin is a must-watch for any fan getting into Steve Carell's work. It shows the roots of his comedic genius and how he was catapulted into the comedy genre, in a well-deserved way, might we add.

This role cracked open a whole new lane for Steve Carell. It proved he could anchor a blockbuster comedy while still sneaking in heart and sincerity. Without Andy Stitzer, there’s no Michael Scott’s evolution into something more human, no pivot into dramatic work like Foxcatcher or Beautiful Boy. It all starts here, with one very awkward virgin who made us laugh and care at the same time.

Available to watch on: Netflix

Battle of the Sexes

Steve Carell’s Bobby Riggs in Battle of the Sexes is a walking circus, and Carell plays him like a man who knows he’s the punchline but insists on being the loudest laugh in the room. With his gaudy suits, over-the-top antics, and nonstop quips about “male superiority,” Riggs is easy to dismiss as a clown. But Carell makes him so much better.

Beneath the theatrics, he shows us a guy spinning out, addicted to gambling, terrified of irrelevance, clinging to the spotlight because he’s convinced obscurity is worse than humiliation. Carell turns Riggs into a tragicomic figure: the kind of man who’ll wear a piglet on his chest for publicity, then quietly crumble when the cameras stop rolling.

Steve Carell makes him infuriating, magnetic, and oddly human all at once. It’s proof that Steve Carell weaponises comedy, using laughter as a smokescreen until, suddenly, you see the loneliness he’s been hiding underneath.

Available to watch on: Prime Video

Foxcatcher

Steve Carell's turn as John Du Pont in Foxcatcher is nothing short of unexpected. The actor we know for gags and humour and as our comfort characters steps into a cruel, hateful shadow of a historical person and the result is pure cinematic brilliance. Directed by Bennett Miller, the film features Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo opposite Carell, and all three of them carried the film all the way to all the major awards that season.

Steve Carell plays a millionaire who breeds something bigger than desire inside himself for wrestling masks. As he pulls Mark and David Schultz - Ruffalo and Tatum into his dark world, things take a turn for something more dangerous.

After the 1984 Olympics, Mark, forever living in David’s shadow, is seduced by Du Pont’s promises of fame, fortune, and a place in his private wrestling kingdom: Team Foxcatcher, a lavish estate turned training compound. Mark flourishes, but every victory comes with strings. Du Pont introduces him to cocaine, manipulates emotions, and blurs the line between mentor and captor. Loyalty is demanded. Boundaries do not exist. Every interaction becomes a test, every smile a potential threat.

The narrative ends on a chilling note as Du Pont commits murder and gives the story an ending that screams out the after effects of desire, control and human fragility. Till date, it is one of Steve Carell's most pulsating performances, and one that highlights his impeccable range.