Just yesterday I was griping that we don’t get enough shirtless men, and today we’re treated with the holy grail of shirtless men, the mere thought of which has me hearing angels singing and seeing light streaming from the clouds. Ryan Gosling takes off his shirt off at the very end of the trailer for Crazy Stupid Love (at 2:20 above), and his on-screen love interest Emma Stone complains “seriously? It’s like you’re Photoshopped.” I think I would just stand there with my mouth hanging open if I were in her place.

Don’t fast forward to the end to see Ryan gracefully lift off his shirt to reveal his rippling six pack. It’s worth it to spend a couple minutes with this trailer. It’s a twist on the traditional romcom, with dual love stories between a divorced guy (Steve Carell) and his ex wife (Julianne Moore) and a player (Ryan Gosling) and the woman who finally challenges him (Emma Stone). Ryan’s character runs into Steve’s character and gives him a man makeover after his split, and then we’re treated to Ryan getting humbled by Emma while Steve rekindles his relationship with Julianne. I admire all these actors and it’s nice to see them on screen together. There are also cameos from Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon.

The trailer reminds me of all the great John Hughes movies of my teen years and of Easy A, which I loved, (and which was a homage to Hughes in a way) but the only commonality is Emma Stone. The writer and directors didn’t work on that film and have mostly kids and animated movies to their credit, except for I Love you Philip Morris, which both of the directors worked on.

I’m really looking forward to this one, but unfortunately it’s not out until July 29th. For now we have Ryan Gosling shirtless though, and that’s enough.

Thanks to OK! for the heads up!

Okay, I have barely been watching The Office this season, just because… you know, I have other junk to do, other stuff to watch and the show really isn’t that good anymore. But I had seen the promos that last night’s episode was going to be “The Proposal” and since Bones was a repeat, I watched it. I was shocked to find myself crying for a good five minutes! It was a beautifully written episode, and they gave fans of the show the perfect Michael Scott proposal. And I simply love Amy Ryan – she’s such an incredibly gifted dramatic actress, and she’s so wonderful and dry and moving in this role of a funky, sweet, cheesy HR rep. I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t watched it yet, but it’s really, really good, and they gave Michael Scott a really good reason to leave the show.

So, yes, Michael Scott/Steve Carell is leaving, and there has been endless speculation as to who would replace him. I had my money on Will Arnett, alum of Arrested Development and one of my favorite guest stars on 30 Rock (he was on last night’s 30 Rock too, as was Oscar-winning screenwriter AARON SORKIN, which was one of the most awesome things ever). Anyway, it turns out that Carell’s replacement is… Will Ferrell! Well, Will is coming in for four episodes, after that, who knows? Show runner/producer Paul Lieberstein (Toby!) tells Deadline: “We are proud to continue The Office’s tradition of discovering famous talent… and we hope that once America gets a good look at Will, they’ll see what we see, tremendous raw sexuality.”

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Eh. Steve Carell confirmed to Entertainment Weekly and other media outlets over the weekend that he is going to be leaving The Office after next season, which is all that he is contractually obligated for. So, I have to applaud him for not being an a–hole, and actually acting like a professional and fulfilling his contract. And I also have to give him credit for making the most of out the midlife career opportunities he’s had, parlaying television success into a genuine nice-guy comedic likeability in several very successful films. But still, it kind of sucks that he’s leaving a series that gave him so many opportunities:

It looks like Dunder Mifflin may soon have to hire a new boss for its Scranton branch. After more than half a dozen seasons on The Office, Steve Carell hints to E! News that he may not be returning to the hit NBC comedy after its seventh season wraps next year.

“I just think it’s time,” he said at the premiere of his new movie, Despicable Me, Sunday in L.A. “When I first signed on I had a contract for seven seasons, and this coming year is my seventh. I just thought it was time for my character to go.”

But Carell, 47, who plays regional manager Michael Scott on the show, says fans shouldn’t get too worried -– the show will do just fine, maybe even better than before.

“[This might] add some new life and some new energy to the show,” he says about leaving a role that earned him multiple Emmy nominations. “I certainly didn’t anticipate any hubbub over it. I didn’t see it as a huge deal.”

“[The writers],” he adds, “have incorporated so many new characters and so many new, great storylines that I have no doubt it’ll continue as strong if not stronger than ever.”

When reached, NBC had no comment.

[From People]

Will The Office survive without Michael Scott? Believe or not, I don’t think people are tuning in for him, and I could easily think of a dozen different scenarios that would work on a sitcom-level for the post-Michael Scott Office. Scenario 1: Put Creed in charge. Scenario 2: Put that crazy redheaded drunk in charge. You get the picture. Anyway, I do think that The Office won’t survive but another season or two after Steve Carell leaves – not because it stopped being funny (although it stopped being as funny as it used to be), but because it’s just getting predictable and it might have overstayed its welcome if it stays on much longer. Just my take.

I have the motherload of Tina Fey interviews today, but don’t expect some kind of Sparkles-esque “I’m terrified of vaginas” type soundbyte. Tina doesn’t roll like that. She’s promoting her role in Date Night, which costars Steve Carell, and comes out this weekend, and she’s already done a cover interview in Esquire, a cover interview with Carell for Entertainment Weekly, and a big interview in The Daily Mail. There are just a few more quotes from the Esquire piece that I wanted to share. Regarding a possible Liz Lemon-Jack Donaghy hookup on 30 Rock, Tina says it’s not going to happen: “Okay, if we get to season 15, they’ll do it.” She also talked about her fondness for f-bombs, saying: “I really love cursing a lot… But as I get older, I realize it’s a little unseemly for women of a certain age. But once you pass 65, you can hit it full tilt again and it’s charming.” And she gives sage advice to young women embarking on a boob-exposing spring break: “They’re your boobs. At least have the sense to film it yourself and get the money from it.”

Next up, The Daily Mail’s piece. There’s lots of background about Fey, which is kind of boring (and if you’re a fan, you probably know it anyway). If you want to read the whole piece, go here. These are some of the highlights:

On being “indebted” to Sarah Palin: ‘You can grow up wanting to make movies or wanting to appear on SNL, but I don’t think anyone sits there dreaming, “Well, I hope there’s a politician out there who looks just like me so I can do impersonations of her!” It was weird because so much of what I’ve done has come out of sheer doggedness, and then this fell into my lap. It put me on the map with people who hadn’t seen 30 Rock or SNL, so what can I say? I’m indebted to her!’

On meeting Palin: ‘She was very pleasant,’ says Tina. ‘We talked about our kids and school, and her hair person helped our hair person alter my wig to make it look more accurate, and she also gave us tips on finding the right lipstick. She’s incredibly telegenic and likable, and she’s now beginning a successful career as a television commentator, so I think she’s doing OK.’

Did she hear from Obama? ‘No, I’ve not heard from him yet, and it’s not my place to talk politically. I speak only through sketch comedy, thankfully.’

On being boring: ‘My daily life consists of going to work or being at home,’ she says, ‘so when I do interviews I always forget to muster up some kind of personality. Two hours from now, I’ll be going, “I really should have tried to jazz that up a little.”’

On being a sex symbol: ‘I cannot do my hair, I cannot do my make-up, and anyone who knows me will tell you I’m the most bedraggled person they have ever seen,’ she says forlornly. ‘I have such a lack of skill in the womanly arts, it’s embarrassing. Well, let’s be honest – the thinking man wants to sleep with the same lady the dumb man does. They all want Jessica Simpson! But I’ll take those compliments for as long as I can because they won’t last for ever. I’ll save all the cuttings so that some day I can look through them.’

On her looks: ‘I’m glad I live in New York, because I think Hollywood would be tough. I mean, I go to the awards ceremonies and even though I’m not big [actually, she’s tiny] I’ll still be the heaviest person there. But that’s OK. My looks aren’t what I bring to the table.’

Tina on her husband, Jeff Richmond: He‘s ‘a Dudley Moore type, shorter than I am, with a very handsome face’, and says that ‘his kindness and his sense of humour were probably the main things that attracted me. I met him when I was 24 and we’ve been together ever since. I went on so few dates in my life before I was married – and certainly none as catastrophic as the one in Date Night – but it was kind of love at first sight for my husband and me. ‘It was very easy and affectionate from the beginning, and there was none of that no-calling-back or game-playing. We didn’t get married until I was 31, but we knew early on that it was something we wanted to do; it was just a matter of us living in the same city again. Jeff was in Chicago and I’d moved to New York [for SNL], but there was never any question about us being together: I was very lucky in that sense.’

On Lindsay Lohan, on her daughter, Alice, and whether she would encourage Alice to be an actress: ‘Knowing [Alice], I can’t imagine her doing anything else. She’s much more outgoing than I ever was as a child – I think she takes after my husband in that sense,’ she smiles. Would she discourage Alice from getting into the acting business at a young age, particularly given the downward spiral that Lindsay Lohan subsequently embarked upon? ‘Lindsay was 17 when she did [Mean Girls] and she was brilliant. But to have success and money at that age has got to be overwhelming. No one tells you “No”, and I definitely wouldn’t want that for my child. I’d try to make her do theatre first because you learn a real work ethic there, and we’d certainly try and make her wait until she’s done school. But Lindsay was a lovely girl,’ she adds, ‘very smart and very funny – and I hold out hope that we’ll see some really good work from her again.’

[From The Daily Mail]

And lastly, some selected quotes from Tina’s joint interview in this week’s Entertainment Weekly, with Steve Carell. It included their discussion of whether Liz Lemon and Michael Scott might actually be perfect for each other, and whether there will ever be a cross-over Office/30 Rock show:

Tina Fey on Steve Carell at Second City: Seventeen years ago she saw him at Second City, and she thought he was one of the “gods of improv”. She admits: “This whole time, it’s been very difficult for me to look directly at Steve or even approach him.”

Tina on wanting to do the film, and the story of Date Night: “[Steve and I] are both married, have been with our spouses for a long time, and have kids. I liked the idea of playing grown people out on this adventure. I definitely relate to the small details of the script, just how worn out and in a rut you can get when you’re married and working, with the kids.”

On doing on epically long kiss with Steve Carell: “I pitched [the idea]. Wouldn’t it be funny is the kiss was as long as the credit sequence? It was fun because we’re both so polite and not only are we both married, but we know each other’s spouses. It was the world’s longest closed-mouth kidd. It was like a tongueless turtle mouth.”

Tina on her “date nights” with her husband: “We don’t have scheduled ones, but it usually involves eating dinner at 11 o’clock at night within an eight block radius of my apartment. I don’t ever want to go out until I put my daughter to bed. And she seems like she knows it and she’ll drag it out! Then God forbid you need to take a shower before you go out. It’s gonna be 11:30.”

On the grueling schedule of network television: “TV is kind of grueling, but the writer-driven nature of it definitely appeals to me. I think the dream is the BBC, AMC model, where you can make 13 episodes a year. Then you can really get them exactly where you want them – and not have everyone be physically ill by the end of it. Obviously, there are worse and harder jobs in the world. It’s not coal-mining.”

What would happen is 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon and The Office’s Michael Scott when on a date?

Fey: Oh, Liz Lemon would f-ck it up. Michael Scott would probably be very open, but Liz would be sour and judgmental and she’d blow it.
Carell: Blow it? With Michael? I don’t think there’s anyway she would agree to go out with Michael Scott unless she had been tricked into it. I don’t think you go from Jon Hamm to Michael Scott. Michael should be so lucky.
Fey: We should just say, ‘That’s the series finale this year!’
Carell: “We’re planning a little cross-pollination. There’s a tornado, and we have to huddle between New York and Scranton.” No way.
Fey: It would be so bad. It’s not gonna happen.

[From Entertainment Weekly, print edition]

So, no cross-over shows, no Michael and Liz. Too bad. It probably would be a bad idea, but I wouldn’t hate the idea of Carell coming to guest star on 30 Rock as a completely new character. I love the men Fey gets on 30 Rock. They’re always nerdy/hot dream men, like Jon Hamm acting weird, or Jason Sudekis, or James Franco, or Liz’s current man (not really) Michael Sheen (who I love!). Carell would totally fit in there.

English funnyman Ricky Gervais is promoting the DVD release of Ghost Town, and sat down for a phone interview with CNN to talk class, English humor, and misanthropy. Gervais riffs on the differences between Americans and Brits, and makes a few sweeping generalizations about his countrymen.

“Ghost Town” earned generally good reviews and a decent box office upon its late-summer release, with the Boston Globe’s Ty Burr comparing Gervais to a Hollywood legend. “Someone once said about W.C. Fields that he had the rare ability to despise amusingly. I can imagine no greater compliment than to say that Ricky Gervais seems, at his best, like a young Fields,” Burr wrote.

That kind of misanthrope is the furthest thing from the Gervais of the phone interview, an engaging man who answers questions with patience and thoughtfulness. Asked why British actors play socially unpleasant roles so well, he ponders the question, makes asides to how often British actors play villains and “bumbling fops” and soon offers a disquisition on the differences between British and American culture.

“I think we play the loser well because England’s full of them,” he says. “We celebrate our losers, we celebrate our underdogs, we celebrate those people — [and then] we build them up and then we don’t like them anymore. Whereas Americans celebrate success. Americans are brought up to believe they can be the next president of the United States. British people are told it won’t happen to you. It sounds like a generalization, but it’s true.”

[From CNN]

There might be some truth to what Gervais is saying – judging solely from the British tabloids and newspapers, I do tend to think the British are meaner, and take more glee in tearing someone down. And there does seem to be a national characteristic of celebrating the underdog in England.

Continuing with his class-obsession, Gervais announces that he and his “The Office” co-creator Steven Merchant have just co-written a film about 1970s England. I think I might be the only person in the world to have never seen the original UK version of “The Office”, but I’ve seen Gervais give Steve Carell respect for where Carell has taken the American version. In this interview, Gervais goes even further, chatting about how much he’d like to work with Carell.

He adds that he just finished writing a film with Steven Merchant called “The Man from the Pru,” set in early-’70s England. “It’s about class, and it’s about can you escape being born living, growing up and dying in the same street,” he says. “I know that’s the same the world over … but it’s because Britain is so small and so diverse. You really couldn’t get out of your class before celebrity came along. The American class system always seemed a bit fairer to me, because it was built on achievement as opposed to blood.”

Since Gervais likes to write his own material, he’s careful about the roles he takes, even with Hollywood beckoning. “Ghost Town” was a good fit, he says, because he and [director] Koepp hit it off so well. “The whole thing was really collaborative,” he says. “I’m not usually an actor for hire, but this was great.”

Indeed, it’s the collaboration that made it, he says. He welcomes that kind of bouncing ideas back and forth, and says he’d love to do something with Steve Carell, who plays the American version of Brent, Michael Scott, on the U.S. version of “Office.” The two had a memorably hilarious exchange at this year’s often unfunny Emmy show.

“I would love to host anything with Steve Carell,” he says. “I would do a cat show with Steve Carell. I would do Computer Nerds’ Mr. Universe with Steve Carell. So if anyone asks me if I will host a show with Steve Carell, the answer’s yes.”

Perhaps that could happen soon: Gervais’ name is often bandied about in rumors about awards show hosting duties. However, he adds, he remains in the dark about it all.

[From CNN]

If any of you saw the Emmy telecast this year, you know that the Steve Carell/Ricky Gervais bit was the funniest thing ever – certainly the funniest thing in what was maybe the worst Emmy show *ever*. And I would pay big money to see The Cat Show starring Ricky Gervais and Steve Carell. It would be the biggest movie of the year! But knowing those two, there might be some dead cats at the end of filming, so the ASPCA would have to get involved. So let me put my two cents in – make Steve Carell and Ricky Gervais co-hosts of next year’s Emmys. That would be brilliant stunt-hosting!

Picture note by JayBird: Here’s Ricky Gervais doing some last minute Christmas shopping in London on December 22nd. Images thanks to WENN.

Anne Hathaway is stunning. Could she look any more statuesque? I would have been worried that she would have been washed out in white – here at the premiere of Get Smart in Rome, but she looks simply amazing. I’d almost say Hepburn-esque! LOVE the broached waistline, adore the layer skirt and admire the simple hair that lets us focus on the gown.

Get Smart starring >Steve Carell, Dwayne Johnson, and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99 opened here in the U.S. on June 20th with $39.2 million making it the Number One movie that weekend.

Red carpet photos thanks to WENN

I often think that I don’t really like Anne Hathaway. Probably because she has such a shady boyfriend. Though she often seems nice, she also seems a little lacking in personality. Though she could just APPEAR that way because she’s one of the few Hollywood starlets that doesn’t go out, get wasted, and act like a fool every other night. So by comparison, she’s a lot more sedate. But I can’t help but like anyone who compares making out with Steve Carell to “the yummiest lollipop.”

Hathaway is making the rounds on the media circuit, promoting her upcoming film Get Smart with Carell and Duane “The Rock” Johnson. She was asked what it was like filming the movie almost entirely with men – and how she felt about getting intimate with Carell.

Before the movie ends, the two of them become drawn to each other emotionally and physically. That leads to the inevitable question: What was it like to “make out” with Carell?

“Making out with him is like the yummiest lollipop,” says Hathaway who is a big fan of Carell’s TV series, The Office. “You are so full of it,” protests Carell, who’s sitting next to her. “Dipped in sunshine!” Hathaway continues. “Stop it!” insists Carell, who’s now starting to break up. “And wrapped around in a masculine wrapper,” she adds serenely. “That’s the only way I can think to describe it.”

Actually, Hathaway has more to say about these amorous scenes. It seems she wasn’t at all well at the time. “OK, so you’ve got to hear this,” she chortles. It seems a certain contact lens solution had ended up giving her conjunctivitis.

“And I had a sinus infection at the same time, so I had to go up to Steve — my eye is red, puffy and dripping green, I am just snotty — and I’m like, ‘Come here!’ The worst thing was we didn’t know I had conjunctivitis at the time, so I had to call our producer, Alex Gartner, that night and say, ‘You might want to let Steve know I had pink eye and my tears kind of got in my mouth, so he might want to worry about that.’”

[From Canada.com]

Wow, that’s incredibly gross. As flattering as Hathaway is about making out with Carell, I can’t help but doubt that he felt the same about her. What with the snot and the pink eye and all. Hathaway claims that the final version of the make out scene came out “very glamorous.” They must have some really good editors at their studio.

Here’s Steve Carell, Brad Bird and Anne Hathaway at the Academy Awards on February 24th. Images thanks to WENN.