Steve Carell, left, and Paul Rudd reunite on the big screen in Dinner For Schmucks.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Steve Carell will play Michael Scott on TV's The Office for the final time next spring, as the show's seventh season wraps up.

After that, he confirmed late last month, he plans to concentrate his energies on his family -- and on his already dynamic, prolific and highly profitable film career.

For several years, Carell has been virtually omni-present on both the small and big screens. Just look at this month.

Two weeks ago his animated comedy Despicable Me debuted at No. 1 in the weekend box-office race, and already has raked in more than $120 million. He just finished shooting the marital-crisis comedy Crazy Stupid Love with Ryan Gosling and Julianne Moore, which is the first film from his new production company, and is set for release in April. And Friday his latest live-action yukfest, Dinner For Schmucks, opens nationally.

If, however, you think it was easy for him to leave the grind of shooting a TV show such as The Office, think again.

"The toughest thing is the fact that these people (on The Office) have become some of my best friends, and so that will be very bittersweet for me," the affable Carell, 47, told QMI Agency in a one-on-one interview on a press day for Dinner For Schmucks.

"I just think it's time. It just seems like a good time for my character. I actually think in terms of the show it could be a welcome shift in the dynamic too, so I'm sure it'll be a very positive thing all the way around. Truly, the reasoning has been to spend more time with my family right now 'cause my kids are so little."

Not that he's complaining about the notoriously long hours it takes to make a TV series.

"I never want to hear myself complain about how hard any of it is, because it's I've been very, very lucky up to this point," he said.

Based on Francis Veber's 1998 French film, Le Diner de Cons (The Dinner Game), Dinner For Schmucks is about a financial analyst named Tim (Paul Rudd) whose promotion is dependent on his ability to bring an idiot to a monthly dinner arranged by his boss (Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood.)

When Rudd's character literally runs into a divorced yet optimistic IRS employee named Barry (played by Carell), whose hobby is mouse taxidermy, he thinks he finds the perfect invitee -- until his life is unintentionally ruined by Barry in the process.

Carell, who has worked with Rudd previously in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, says he was drawn to the role because of their working relationship, and the chance to work with director Jay Roach (Austin Powers, Meet The Parents.)

"Working with Jay and Paul, those were enormous factors for me," said Carell at a news conference for Dinner For Schmucks.

"I liked the story line too. I thought it was funny. It was a little weird. It had a heart to it and I tend to like things that have a grey area to them. Like the character that Paul plays, here's a guy who's very conflicted, he's not a bad guy, but he's at a moral impasse in his life. And I think that's a really interesting aspect of the story. I thought it was a very intriguing story line ... I think it's a very kind story and a great relationship between these two characters."

Carell says his nerdy look for Barry -- bad haircut and clothes, including a windbreaker and a clip-on tie -- weren't popular with his wife and two children, but it worked for the character.

And the bad teeth and bad hair -- just props, right?

"No, I'm just pretty ugly," he kidded QMI Agency.

"I just wanted it to be an incredibly earnest look. I don't think the character is trying to look weird or dress weird, he's just incredibly open. I see him as a guy who's been scarred emotionally. He's had some real tough times. I think in order to get through he just tries to keep as positive an outlook on life as he can. I see him as just this optimistic, earnest, kind, open, caring guy, who tries to keep moving ahead in order to keep the pain at bay. I feel like he's just so well-meaning it can be misconstrued as odd or off-putting or unsophisticated, but I just see him as somebody who just follows a different rhythm in life. And I see that as sort of all the schmucks. That they're really not people to denigrate, they're people to celebrate because they add spice and colour to the world. "

Carell, who has described his character as a cross between Ghandi and one of The Three Stooges, says he never watched the original French film on which Dinner For Schmucks was based -- just as he's never watched the original British version of The Office.

"I didn't want to have that inform what I was going to do. I tried to look at it as a blank slate," he said at the media conference.

Carell said the key to playing Barry came from his so-called "mousterpieces" -- the mice he taxiderms.

"He's clearly meticulous and single-minded, and there's a beauty to those things that this guy exhibits," he told QMI Agency. "They're a little weird but they are gorgeously done. They're beautiful. They say so much about his character. A little strange but there's a real ability, there's talent there, and there's beauty there, and I think there's something to celebrate there in him. I have such a great affection for that character. I hate to talk about characters in the third person, but I didn't want him to be the cliched, nerdy, annoying guy. I just thought, 'No, he's not annoying.' And I do know people like this who are so overwhelmingly earnest, sometimes they can't help themselves. It's almost counter-intuitive, like the more they try to help, the worse it gets. But I think the character is such a good, kind heart and you just want him to be OK."

Carell said he'd actually like to own one of the mouse dioramas -- "either the Ben Franklin or the Evel Knievel ... displayed proudly."

Emmy nod an honour

Steve Carell earlier this month received his fifth Emmy nomination for his hilarious portrayal of Michael Scott in the TV show The Office. Carell says his family quietly celebrated with him.

Actually, his wife of 15 years, Nancy, who he met when she was a student in an improv class he was teaching at The Second City comedy troupe in Chicago, asked their young daughter and son, to acknowledge their father's accomplishment.

"We were in New York when they announced," Carell told QMI Agency in a one-on-one interview. "And I was with my family, we were doing promotion there, and my wife actually made my kids applaud me. And they had no idea, they were so funny. It was like "Annie, Johnny -- Daddy got an Emmy nomination, now everybody clap!' They're six and nine so they couldn't care less. It was just kind of funny. We don't make a big deal out of it. It's very fun. It's an honour. We don't make a huge to-do out of it. It's fun to get dressed up. My wife looks great all dressed up. She helps me get through it. Because my wife is so much funnier than I am, we walk the red carpet, and she's really great to watch."

Carell lives with his family in what he describes as the low-key L.A. suburb of Toluca Lake in the San Fernando Valley.

He said he has no plans to perform in the future with his wife, who has appeared on Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, but he wouldn't rule it out.

"I'd love to. She's one of the funniest people I know and smartest but right now she kind of doesn't want to do anything, certainly nothing more than part-time, because she wants to be with the kids on a daily basis, especially when I've been out doing things. But who knows? If I'm home more, that might give her a little more licence to go out and do some stuff on her own."

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