Seth Rogen Says Steve Carell Was Uncomfortable With How Dirty ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ Was

Steve Carell’s performance in The 40-Year-Old Virgin is arguably one of the funniest of his career. Starring alongside Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd, the three work tirelessly to get Carell to finally lose his virginity.

Although many people found the movie’s raunchy, inappropriate humor to be hilarious, Carell himself wasn’t so amused. 

Seth Rogen thinks Steve Carell didn’t like the raunchiness of ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’

Rogen loved working with Carell, who wasn’t as big of a star at the time. Carell is known for being extremely funny, but he apparently wasn’t too amused by the style of humor in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.   

“It was great working with Steve Carell,” Rogen told GQ. “I got the sense he was uncomfortable with how dirty the movie was. And it’s funny because you look at his career beyond that film, he never made another movie like that in any way shape, or form. He really—he changed direction. That movie is kind of an anomaly.”

Rogen found Carell’s attitude funny, especially because it matched his character’s personality.

“It was funny, ‘cause it kind of reflected the dynamic in the movie, where we were this filthy force in the life of this guy who’s a kind of pristine.”

Steve Carell really got his chest waxed in ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’

The 40-Year-Old Virgin is packed with hilarious moments, but one of the craziest scenes is when Carell gets his chest waxed for the first time. The process looks extremely painful, and apparently was an authentic experience. 

“There’s a scene where Steve Carell gets his chest waxed, and we waxed him for real,” Rogen admitted. “And we had to just stand there and watch it, and it was pretty f—ed up. And he started bleeding.”

Seth Rogen came up with Steve Carell’s ‘Kelly Clarkson’ line 

Because he was signed on as both an actor and a producer, Rogen himself came up with the hilarious one-liners Carell kept shouting as he got his chest waxed. 

“I remember that was a mission, I would get—I was co-producer on the movie, so I would get writing assignments,” Rogen said. “And I remember one of my assignments was to make things for him to scream as he was getting waxed so he didn’t have to think of it.”

Carell’s random Kelly Clarkson outburst was added in merely because Rogen had seen her on American Idol around the time of production.

“I was supposed to be making a dirty list and a clean list,” Rogen said. “I remember I was—the dirty list was easy and the clean list was hard. And I remember I couldn’t think of anything and American Idol was on and it was the year Kelly Clarkson was on and I wrote Kelly Clarkson. I wrote it as just something to fill the page so Judd wouldn’t yell at me, but it turned into a line that people still remember.”

It was Steve Carell’s idea to sing ‘Age of Aquarius’ after losing his virginity  

Although Rogen had a lot of creative input for the funny moments in the movie, Carell had a few of his own ideas as well. 

“I remember there was a lot of discussion of like, ‘How do we show the joy he has after losing his virginity?’” Rogen said. “I remember Carell was like, ‘I should just sing ‘Age of Aquarius,’’ and we were like, ‘Oh, that’s a very funny idea.’”