This past December Steve Carell paid tribute to one of his comedy idols, Steve Martin, at the Kennedy Center Honors. "His act was that of an idiot savant," he joked about Martin's onscreen personae. "Minus the savant." Apparently, it takes one to know one. The same could be said for most of Carell's comedic alter egos.

Take Michael Scott, the clueless regional manager for a fictitious paper company on The Office. Michael may not be nearly as likable or funny as he wants to believe, but that's part of his charm. Or look at Carell's version of secret agent Maxwell Smart in the spy comedy Get Smart. He's an idiot with a heart of gold, a moron with such good intentions it's impossible to despise him.

Carell's repertoire of characters includes more than just lovable buffoons. Over the past decade he has played a gay Proust scholar in Little Miss Sunshine, an arrogant newsman in Bruce Almighty and its sequel, Evan Almighty, a dim weatherman in Anchorman and a widowedadvice columnist in love with his brother's girlfriend in Dan in Real Life.

No one is more surprised by this success than Carell himself. The Massachusetts native, the youngest of four brothers, was convinced at a young age he would end up in a nine-to-five job. As a student at Ohio's Denison University he assumed he would be a lawyer. Oddly, it took his parents to convince him he should give up practicality in favor of something he really wanted to do, like show business.

He moved to Chicago after graduation and began performing at the legendary Second City improv-comedy theater, but things didn't go well. He lost his bid to get on Saturday Night Live. He appeared in a string of failed sitcoms, as an easily incensed Greek chef on Over the Top and Julia Louis-Dreyfus's obnoxious ex-husband on Watching Ellie. His first break came in 1999, when he was hired (thanks to a recommendation from friend and Second City cast mate Stephen Colbert) as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news satire The Daily Show. Along with recently hired anchor Jon Stewart, Carell -- and the show -- became a hit.

It wasn't until 2005 that he made the leap from dependable comedy sidekick to unconventional leading man. The 40-Year-Old Virgin, in which Carell starred and which he co-wrote with director Judd Apatow, raked in more than $177 million at the box office worldwide.

Since then the 45-year-old Carell has apparently been unable to do wrong. And through it all, the actor and comedian has enjoyed a seemingly normal family life, marrying fellow comic Nancy Walls -- they met at Second City (she was his student in an improv class), and she has been his occasional acting partner in everything from The Daily Show to The Office -- and raising two children.

We sent writer Eric Spitznagel (who most recently interviewed Tina Fey for Playboy) to speak with Carell.

Carell: "I expected Carell to put on his usual self-effacing routine. He likesto evade questions that get too personal with a barrage of gags and tongue-in-cheek modesty. But after we waded through the humor, it became apparent that his humility isn't a facade. When you cut down to the bone, he really is just a nice guy who stumbled into comedy stardom.

"When he hosted Saturday Night Live, Carell joked during his monologue that 'money falls frommy ass.' The more you talk to Steve Carell, the more you realize he really does believe his successis just that random and inexplicable."

Playboy: In Get Smart you play a bumbling idiot and----

Carell: No, I do not.

Playboy: Really? We're talking about the same movie, right?

Carell: I never saw Maxwell Smart as bumbling. He's not a Jacques Clouseau kind of character. He's very good at his job. If you watch the TV show, Don Adams plays Maxwell as somebody who is quirky but always knows he will succeed in whatever he attempts. He has a lot of self-confidence.

Playboy: But his confidence is misguided, isn't it?

Carell: Well, sure. But when he gets into a fight, he can take care of himself. He knows how to handle a firearm. Part of what makes the character so funny, at least to me, is that he lacks any self-awareness and may take himself too seriously. But he is still a good spy. He gets the job done.

Playboy: Adams served in the Marines during World War II and was comfortable shooting a machine gun. What's your military training?

Carell: You mean aside from being a Navy SEAL? As a special-ops alumnus, I'm not supposed to talk about my training too much. As you'll see in the movie, I'm extremely proficient in the ways of killing people. No, this was my first experience using a gun. I did some firearms training, mostly safety-based. There's a lot of gunplay in the movie, and we had live rounds in our weapons.

Playboy: Live rounds? They gave you actual bullets?

Carell: Well, no, they weren't live live. They were blanks. You see, in the magical world of filmmaking it's always to the producer's advantage to keep the cast and crew unharmed for the duration of the shooting schedule. Blank rounds are especially helpful if the director wants to do more than one take with living actors.