Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway in Get Smart

One of the greatest things about comic actors is their unique physicality and vocal patterns. What do you think your mannerisms are as a comic actor?

STEVE CARELL: Wow. You know what? As soon as you start to talk about your own mannerisms you are screwed because if you’re aware of your own mannerisms, or even beyond that, like what makes any one thing funny to people.... if you start deconstructing it too much, it is immediately not funny. If you start over-thinking it or trying to figure out some sort of formula, it’s math.

This is Maxwell Smart’s origin story which we’ve never seen before, right?

STEVE : Right. He starts as an analyst. He’s someone who aspires to be a spy but is now middle-aged and has not gotten to that point and has not been promoted. And, through a series of events that you see early in the movie, he is promoted to spy and at that point is able to incorporate all these things he’s been working on all along. The one thing that I loved about the way Don Adams portrayed Maxwell is that he is not an idiot. He’s not a fumbling fool. He’s actually very proficient.... He’s able to incorporate all these things he’s been working on all along. He’s clever. He gets out of situations — sometimes counter-intuitively, but he gets out of them. If there’s one aspect specifically that I wanted to take away from the original show, it’s that he’s not an idiot.

Action comedy is a new arena for you, right?

STEVE: Oh, it’ll be my only arena from here on out.

Can you talk about what it’s like to make an action movie?

STEVE: Honestly, it could not have been more fun. It’s something you dream about as a kid. It is literally like playing in a sandbox for several weeks, and pretending. There are parts of the movie that Annie and I are hanging off the sides of buildings and rappelling underneath a plane and having a fight on top of a moving SUV that is also on fire and about to smash into a train. All of these things are a far cry from anything I’ve ever done before....

How far would you go before a stunt person would take over?

STEVE: Probably the riskiest thing I did was being pulled behind a moving SUV down train tracks. That was a little scary. The stunt people are so good and they really make sure that you’re safe. I never felt that my life was in peril at any point....

Tell us about the gadgets that Maxwell Smart has?

STEVE : Sure. Well, there’s the Cone of Silence, and it’s a bit different than in the TV series, but the common thread is that it still doesn’t work.... The Shoe Phone makes an appearance.... I have this little gadget which you see a tiny bit of in the scene in the airplane bathroom. It’s a tiny Swiss army knife that has several gadgets within it, including a crossbow, a flamethrower, and some other things that you find out along the way....

Anne, did you enjoy playing a woman who is tough and capable, and also being the only girl in this group of guys?

ANNE HATHAWAY: It was such a delight. I feel like I was so indulged on the set every day by these guys, being the only girl. It was fun. Some days I felt like they were trying to be very polite around me and keep the conversation in sort of a prim environment. So, I would just tell the dirtiest joke I could think of just to put everybody at ease. As for the high heels, I had excellent training in The Devil Wears Prada where I had to run around wearing them. So, when it came time to just add some high kicks and jumps, it wasn’t that bad. Having a stunt double who did it much better than me helped though.

Could you talk about the challenges of dancing with the lady in the dinner scene?

STEVE: I think the challenge was hers. She’s actually a fantastic dancer and I am not. So, I think the inherent challenge there was to try to make me look good. And, if I may comment about the high heels for Anne, there were several scenes in the movie where we are running toward Disney Hall at full tilt. I was running as fast as I possibly could run. Anne was wearing four-five-six-inch heels and she was beating me. I have no idea how that is physically possible.

You really made these characters your own. How did you prepare for these parts?

ANNE : I actually grew up watching the show on Nick at Night and loved it, so it was really fun to revisit it.... I wanted to make sure that I understood what tone we were trying to achieve. I really think that in the final product we’ve managed to have that silly, sweet, yet sophisticated feel that the original series had.

STEVE: I steered away from it because I didn’t want to do an impression of Don Adams. I figured there was no way to improve upon what he had done, and I thought the more I watched him, the more I would be inclined to do an impersonation because he was so good and so definitive in the role.

Is there pressure to live up to that sort of iconic role that you had in Prada?

ANNE: I think Meryl had the iconic role. I think I was just the one who was kind of keeping the story moving and trying to keep the audience while she was off-screen. I’m 25 years old and I’ve had tremendous luck in my life in terms of movies that I’ve made for artistic reasons have gone on to become commercial successes. It’s kind of dumb luck. You never know what’s going to hit.... So, the process is you just try to pick the best you can from what’s available and try to work with people that inspire you. That’s just about it.

Maxwell Smart from Get Smart and Michael Scott from The Office have this perfect deadpan. What does it take to make you break?

STEVE: Oh, it takes editing to cut out all the times I’m laughing hysterically. That’s, the long and short of it. More importantly than that, I try specifically not to laugh when someone else is doing their thing because if you laugh and ruin someone else’s take, if somebody’s doing something inspired or incredibly funny, it’s a gift. And to take that away by laughing and ruining it, that’s a cardinal sin in my mind. But there are some times you just can’t help yourself.

How much preparation did you do for all the action sequences?

STEVE : Well, I worked out and made my body a physical specimen to be admired. Fine-tempered steel is what most people used to refer to (laughs).

Anne, who is the sexier co-star, Steve Carell or Kate Hudson?

ANNE: Alan Arkin.

I hear that you’re an avid fan of The Office, Anne. What’s it like to make out with Steve Carell?

STEVE : I’m interested in this.

ANNE: You were there. To say that I’m a fan of The Office is really putting it mildly.... I just love the show so much. I love humour that kind of makes you feel uncomfortable and that show is so brilliant at it.... When I went to audition for this movie, I didn’t think in a million years I was going to get the part. I really just wanted to meet Steve. So, I did and it went well. And yeah, making out with him is, it’s like the yummiest.

STEVE: Give me a break.

ANNE:...lollipop...

STEVE: Oh, you are so full of it.

ANNE:...dipped in sunshine...

STEVE: Stop it.

ANNE:...with a masculine wrapper. It’s, that’s the only way I can describe it.