Great example about Ben Stiller. He seems to play the nervously uptight, hyperactive, people pleaser in almost every one of his roles. He has made me tired.

Oh, and I agree that Carell would do brilliantly as a reporter for something like The Daily Show. It would be extremely refreshing to seem him do something drastic in his move to step above and beyond.

I see Steve Carell in the same vein as guys like Chevy Chase or Ben Stiller. These guys are actors who do only a couple comedic roles really well, and get moved into whole bunches of roles essentially because they are likeable.

The thing that really would be intriguing, albeit unlikely, is if Carell did something drastically different upon his departure from The Office. My mind wants something like a reprisal of his role as a reporter on The Daily Show.

I think many actors resign themselves at some point to seeing themselves as a brand. Carell is a brand right now, and in order to capitalize on his brand, he can’t do that just doing The Office. This is unfortunate for us as fans because we know that there is still amazing stuff that could come from this cast as an ensemble. However, the Carell brand can go much farther monetarily by doing bad comedic roles as a substitute.

An interesting examination of this phenomenon was the movie Funny People. Did you happen to see it?