Evan Almighty Uk

[Daisy Hughlett]

Themovie did cause me to think about how life must have been for the original Noah. Did his wife look at him as if he were off his rocker when he told her he was going to build a boat that would save them from a coming flood? Did his colleagues think he was crazy? The movie pictured well the laughter and taunting that Noah must have experienced as he undertook his building project.

And the scenes of Evan pleading for the people to get on the Ark to escape the flood were thought-provoking (although once on board, people closed the door of the ark, rather than God, as in the original account). What was it like for Noah, the preacher of righteousness? How often did he call out for his family members to come with him? (See Noah the evangelist, Noah Revisited, and Noah: the man who trusted God.)

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Very profound dialog, right? Indeed, it could be a key to resolve the age-old mystery of why you are not hearing back from employers. Although there are many obvious reasons, this dialog reveals a new context.

I was chatting with a friend when he shared his story: "I was in a good position, successful in what I was doing, and comfortable where I was. One day, I got a strong urge to consider leaving my job. I started looking for new opportunities. I was 100 % sure I will get a job in 90 days or less. But I was shocked by the lack of positive feedback. At first, I started to question the quality of my resume, then the quality of the recruiters that were working with me, then the competency of the employers' recruiters and hiring managers. The cycle of the blame went on and on until an eye-opener opportunity broke it. Mysteriously I found myself obligated to take an IQ test immediately and without any preparation. The test indicated that my quantitive skills are not the same as they used to be because of the constant use of calculators. This test made me discover that I was in denial. I discovered that the market shifted and required skills different from the skills I had. I was also giving my education credentials weight more than I should. I had the illusion that previous successes will lead to new successes. All these facts made me realize it was time to act, and I did. I refreshed my skills and added a few more. I kept looking and applying for jobs. Eventually, I got a job that helped me practice the new skills that I acquired and made me competitive again in the marketplace".

You are no different from him or anyone else. There are only two options available to deal with an unprogressing job search: either to take the easy way by blaming your luck and others. Or to seize the opportunity, identify your weaknesses, strengthen them, and keep applying for the right jobs. The former will slow down your career while the latter will land you a good job, and more importantly, you will stay relevant to the market.

Steve Carell has emerged as one of Hollywood's most sought-after comic actors. He first gained recognition for Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and has won huge acclaim for his Golden Globe Award-winning performance as Michael Scott in the US version of hit British comedy The Office. Carell saw his first feature film, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which he co-wrote, open at number one at the US box office, taking over $175 million worldwide, and he earned huge praise for his role in the acclaimed Academy Award-nominated comedy Little Miss Sunshine. He will next be seen in Evan Almighty, the follow-up to the Jim Carrey smash Bruce Almighty. Carell returns as his character from the first film, Evan Baxter, but this time he is the lead, called upon by God to build him an ark, much as Noah before in Biblical times.

Q. Does it feel good to follow in the footsteps of Jim Carrey?

SC: Yeah. He gets all the power of God. I get pooped on by birds. He gets to blow women's skirts up in the air, and I get to hang out in a sweaty robe for three months.

Q. There are a lot of animals in this film. There must have been some mad moments?

SC: There was a scene where these two baboons had to hand me lemonade when I was building the ark, and one of them spilt the lemonade, so I improvised and said something like, 'Hey, man, what are you doing?' The baboon went crazy. He thought I was being aggressive and he got mad, and bared his teeth. I continued with the scene and later the animal trainer came up to me and said, 'Look, don't do that - don't improvise with the baboons and don't look them in the eye!' And I thought well maybe he should have told me that before I started the take! That was pretty funny. I'm not sure if that's in the final cut of the movie, but when you talk about real, organic moments, that was very real.

Q. What was the most difficult animal to work with?

SC: The birds. I spent three days covered in birds for one scene, and what people often don't realize is that birds smell. They have a really distinct odor to them, kind of like a bird body odor, and when you have them up and down your arms and legs and across your shoulders, you become quite familiar with their eccentricities.

Q. What animal did you like best?

SC: I enjoyed the elephants and giraffes. They were incredibly sweet. A giraffe up close, they have very soulful eyes and their faces are kind, and elephants are the same. They seem to have a real soul and they're very smart. They knew what they were doing, and you got a sense that they knew what they were a part of.

Q. What makes Evan himself funny?

SC: He starts off as kind of a blowhard. He has a ripe ego and thinks very highly of himself. As a congressman, his campaign slogan is 'change the world.' But to him that's just a slogan. And yet he gets to learn what that statement really means, and that's where the interplay with God comes in. He doesn't truly understand his motives until the end. It's more of a situational comedy, rather than laughing at how goofy he is or whether he says something wacky. It's more that he's struggling to understand what is happening. There is a huge shift in his life; he's gone to Washington to become a congressman, but finds himself hanging off the side of an ark with thousands of animals aboard. He's trying to keep his job as a congressman, and he's going crazy.

Q. The film's message is global, rather than centred on America?

SC: There's a lot at stake in the movie in terms of the world. It does have a world view, rather than an American politics view. There's some of that, in terms of how America is using its natural resources, but it's a very broad idea, about what we are all doing. How we are protecting the world and each other... So that's the real focus thematically of the movie.

Q. Evan starts out as a congressman. Do politics appeal to you?

SC: I have never aspired to a political life. I think that is a difficult and often unrewarding way of life, because I think there's so much red tape and manoeuvring in political circles to get things done and I just don't possess that kind of attitude. I think you need a very strong ego, be very self-possessed, and you need a great deal of confidence, but you also have to appeal to a wide spectrum of individuals. It seems a commitment that I would never have. Plus, there's the standard issue mockery that goes with being in politics. For Gerald Ford it was that he was always falling over; with Jimmy Carter I think he said he lusted after women in his heart, and comics got a lot of mileage out of that. A friend of mine from the Daily Show spoke at the White House press dinner and really dragged George Bush over the coals, so there's certainly a lot to go after.

Q. Your humour has never been about jokes or ridiculing people...

SC: My comedy is more about the every day man. Someone asked me to make a glib comment about Britney Spears and the fact that she shaved her head. I thought, why? She's a young kid struggling to figure out what's right in her life. To me, what's funny is a situation. A real person in a real situation, and how they get out of that situation, or how they struggle through that situation.

Q. You prefer comic actors like Peter Sellers, then?

SC: Yes, Peter Sellers was master. His Clouseau character was incredibly broad and silly, but you never got the impression that Peter Sellers or the character thought it was funny. He was in these situations that were incredibly absurd and of a heightened reality, but they somehow rang true because he was completely committed to it. And you never sensed his awareness.

Q. What do people most want to talk to you about, the chest-waxing scene from The 40-Year-Old Virgin?

SC: Yes, all the time. People can't believe I did that. I remember one guy saying that he'd told his son that it wasn't real and it was all specials effects. But it was real - it was one take and it was a bloody mess, literally a bloody mess. In this movie there's a whole scene where I'm trying to get rid of this beard on my face and it keeps growing back. I really can will a beard to grow in a matter of hours.

Q. You're a modest guy. Does all this attention seem weird to you?

SC: It's so strange, and I sometimes wonder how I got invited to this party. The past two years have been crazy and irrational and something that I would never have anticipated. I went to the All Star basketball game in Las Vegas and was sitting there with Cameron Diaz, Beyonce and Dave Chappelle, and all these famous people. I looked at the ticket price, it was $5000, and sometimes I can't wrap my head around that.

Q. You're now working on Get Smart, a big screen remake of the US TV show

SC: Yes. It's set in modern day. I play Max. It's an updated version of the original, and while there will be elements of the original, I'm not doing a Don Adams' impression. It'll be a similar character but not the same sort of breed.

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