Steven John Carell (born August 16, 1962 ) is a Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning American comedian, actor, producer and writer, who rose to fame as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, from 1999 to 2004. Since 2005, he has starred in the American version of the television sitcom The Office, as main character Michael Scott. He has starred and co-starred in several films including Bruce Almighty, Anchorman, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, Evan Almighty and Dan in Real Life.

Steve Carell, one of American comedy's most popular faces who edited a school newspaper as a child, is now celebrated as the funniest man on the cover of Life Magazine and on NBC's SNL, where he hosted the 2005-2006 season premiere. He became an unusually versatile comic after more than two decades of improv skits and bit parts, and received the 2006 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in Television Comedy for the leading role of Michael Scott in his remake of Britain's existential comedy "Office, The" (2005). He was born Steven John Carell on August 16, 1962, into an Italian-American family in Concord, Massachusetts, USA. He was educated at The Fenn School, an all boys private school in Concord, Massachusetts, then at Middlesex School in Concord. He studied and graduated from Denison University in Granville, Ohio, then took acting at Chicago's Second City troupe. Carell made his film debut in 1991, as Tesio in Curly Sue (1991). From 1990-1996 he taught improvisational comedy class and also performed with The Second City troupe in Chicago. During the 1990s he was writing for The Dana Carvey Show, then he had a stint as one of correspondents on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Carell shot to fame after his breakout performances on the big screen as Evan Baxter opposite Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty (2003) and opposite Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell in Bewitched (2005). He co-wrote the original screenplay for the summer box-office hit 40 Year Old Virgin, The (2005) which was chosen as one of the Top Ten movies of 2006 by the American Film Institute. Carell co-stars with Greg Kinnear in Little Miss Sunshine (2006), an independent dark comedy that gives an unusually sharp and sarcastic view on America. Carell is slated to reprise his role as Evan Baxer, filling Jim Carrey's leading-man shoes as a politician asked by God to build a giant ark in Evan Almighty (2007), a second installment of the "Almighty" franchise, co-starring Lauren Graham and Morgan Freeman. Carell is also a producer of the film. Steve Carell has been enjoying a happy family life with his wife, actress Nancy Walls, whom he met when she was a student in an improv class he was teaching at The Second City comedy troupe in Chicago. The couple have two children, daughter Elisabeth (born in May 2001), and son John (born in June 2004). Steve Carell is currently residing with his family in Los Angeles, California.