Nerd-gone-bad Vector (voiced by Jason Segel) does the dirty on his wireless keyboard in the hit animation film Despicable Me.

Nerd-gone-bad Vector (voiced by Jason Segel) does the dirty on his wireless keyboard in Despicable Me.



 
To say that Jason Segel was in his element while providing a lead voice for the 3D animated family film Despicable Me is, he admits, something of an understatement. "Animation and puppetry and kids stuff with a little edge has always been right in my wheelhouse, so this was a treat," he says with glee.
 
In the film Segel lends his voice to evil mastermind Vector, the even-more-evil rival of the nasty Gru (voiced by Segel's comedy pal Steve Carell). Vector is a short, nerdy, bespectacled, tracksuit-wearing bad guy whose mastery of technology draws immediate parodic comparisons with Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates.
 
Any resemblance is purely coincidental, as it turns out. "I've been asked that before! He looks more like Bill Gates than I intended!" Segel laughs. As for the snivelling voice he developed for Vector, inspiration was close at hand and required no deep digging into the shady side of his psyche.
 
"Actually, it was really easy. I just figured this guy was super, super insecure and while he is really short and nerdy I've been six-four since I was 12." (Six-four is unmetricated American that translates into English as 193 centimetres). "I was, like, six-four and 100 pounds (45.36kg) for a couple of years, just this weird, gangly kid who was like ET trying to figure out how his limbs worked. So that's what I drew on, the insecurity of my childhood. I'm, like, the least masculine man of all time. I happen to be gigantic, but I'm pretty soft."
 
The film has proved a huge hit, having taken more than $330 million worldwide, outdoing other 3D epics such as Monsters vs Aliens, How to Train Your Dragon, Ice Age 3 and Clash of the Titans. And it’s the latest feather in Segel’s increasingly weighty cap. As well as being a regular on the popular sitcom How I Met Your Mother Segel, 30, starred in the hit bromance I Love You, Man and is best known for writing and starring in the neo-classic chick flick for guys Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
 
There is some irony that Universal, the studio behind Despicable Me and Sarah Marshall, initially tharted his ascent. Comedy uber producer/director Judd Apatow wanted Segel cast in The 40 Year Old Virgin, but the studio deemed him to be too much of a - well - a nobody. Deep despondency followed.
 
So, were there any dormant feelings of revenge or resentment over Universal's initial spurning that he roused and channelled into Vector? "No, they made Forgetting Sarah Marshall, so all reparations have been made. They've actually been a great partner in my career and I think we're going to be working together for a long time. I'm really thankful for them, actually. To some extent I owe to them."
 
"Universal has actually been great. They've been a  great partner in my career and I think we're going to be working together for a long time. I'm really thankful for them actually. Everything I've done, to some extent, I owe to them."
 
"You know what? To be honest, yeah, that was an unpleasant time for me when 40 Year old Virgin didn't work out," Segel says. His career "started out with a bang" on Apatow's TV shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. Though the programs were short lived Segel's comic potential was evident to Apatow and his colleagues.
 
"We kind of thought I was about to be America's next great superstar!" Segel jests. "Then, next thing you know, I didn't work for five years. It was very, very tough but it drove me to write Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Then I started doing my TV show (How I Met Your Mother) and everything really changed in the next few years."
 
Indeed they did. Segel has now been on HIMYM for six years, "couldn't be more proud of" Despicable Me, is set to appear in Gulliver's Travels at Christmas, has just wrapped the drama Jeff Who Lives at Home opposite Susan Sarandon, stars in the romantic comedy Bad Teacher with Cameron Diaz and is planning to shoot another comedy with Sarah Marshall director Nic Stoller next year called Five-Year Engagement. "So I'm a happy dude," he chirps.
 
Furthermore, Get Him to The Greek, which Stoller directed, features Russell Brand reprising the rock star Aldous Snow that Segel created for Sarah Marshall. At the risk of being nosey, does Segel get royalties for that? "You bet your ass I do!" he says with a distinctly hearty laugh.
 
He credits much of his success to the work ethic instilled in him by Apatow. There "absolutely" is an Apatow school of comedy, Segel says. "He taught us about hard work and about how, if you're willing to put in the effort and pay your dues and do a ton of writing and a ton of acting, he'll be there to support you. He's really the best mentor someone could hope for."
 
The man/child theme common to many Apatow comedies is something Segel was eager to put his own stamp on, first with Sarah, then with I Love You, Man.
 
"One of the things Judd really taught us is to write from the truth we know,’’ Segel says. "Yeah, well, it's such a broad thing to say but I'm very, very interested in exploring the gritty, gritty truth of what's going on with me at any given moment. So with Forgetting Sarah Marshall I had just had a terrible break up, and I wanted to really write about a terrible break up. As I get closer to the idea of getting married and things like that I'm starting to want to write about meeting the girl and settling down. When I get to the point where I have kids I'll probably write a movie and explore that. For me, I like exploring what I'm going through at a given moment."
 

When talking to Segel about Sarah Marshall it's hard not to gush about what a funny, insighful, honest film it is. The opening scene of a naked Segel - his tackle in full, unpixellated glory - being dumped by his girlfriend (Kristen Bell from Veronica Mars) set the tone for what has become a neo-classic. The film reversed the standard romantic comedy template by daring to present men as emotionally vulnerable, fragile and capable of crying. It even showed that a dumped man could actually become friends with his ex-girlfriend's new beau.

 
Apologies to Segel about bringing the film up again are wasted. Describe it as his Citizen Kane and he sounds genuinely humbled.
 
"Oh, thanks man," he says, pausing. "You know, I'm really proud of the film. I'll never get sick of talking about it." So, how did he, as a writer, get to plumb such depths of the lovestruck male psyche? "The thing that Judd told me early on in writing a script was `do me a favour. In your first draft, write a drama. Then we'll make it funny. It's going to be funny by the nature of who we are and our performances. What will keep people interested is the emotional truth of it'.
 
"So that's what I did, then we laid the comedy on top of it and that's why it worked because at its core it's about some real stuff. I cry a lot in that movie. I'm a sensitive dude, what can I say?"

It's been two years since the film planted its flag. Segel gauges its impact.
 
"It changed my life, certainly. It did really well. It was a huge deal in terms of getting other parts. The reality of Hollywood and how it works is that I wrote (a succesful film) and so, all of a sudden - in literally one swoop - I had some juice as a writer and as an actor. Things literally changed because of one movie, which was pretty fantastic."
 
Doors opened. Phone calls got returned. And people got past the cover note on his scripts.
 
"It made a big difference especially as a writer," Segel says. "You can have a script and literally just getting someone to read it can be a challenge. Even before `is it good?', just getting someone to read it can be an actual issue. Then, all of a sudden, people want to read your script. `Hey! What's next? What are you writing next?' Now, I just milk them for all it's worth! I want to start buying houses in every country I can think of!"
 

In I Love You, Man Segel played man-friend to Chris Judd's soon-to-be-wed nice guy who realises he has too few male pals. The film certainly didn't introduce the concept of the "bromance", but it did coin the term. It also seemed to get everybody thinking and talking about the rich tradition of films dealing with the importance of male bonding.  
 
"It's funny. I totally noticed that!" Segel says excitedly. "While the movie did very well there was something about the concept that seemed to hit some sort of cultural zeitgeist. Bromance became a big deal and, yeah, it suddenly became a topic of conversation."
 

In the meantime, Segel is busy making a movie for kids - the much-anticipated new Muppet film, tentatively (and modestly) titled The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made. It’s a big deal for Segel.
 
"The Muppets were legitimately my first comic influence," he says. "This movie isn't like retroactive love. Any of my friends will tell you I've had Muppet figures and Muppet puppet replicas in my house for 20 years. I just love them and I've been making short films with puppets for a long time."
 
While preparing the puppet sequence for Sarah, Segel worked with the company of late Muppet creator Jim Henson. He asked to see Kermit and Miss Piggy and was told Disney now owned them.
 
"Something clicked in my mind. `Oh. Got it.' " says Segel, before pausing. His tone now becomes very serious. "I felt like the Muppets had changed at some point, and I think I know why. So I went to Disney and pitched an idea for a new Muppet movie that was in the spirit of the late-70s, early-80s movies and the Muppet show. Now, three years later, we're getting ready to start making this movie at the end of the year!"
 
There have been many reports that Segel was joking when he mentioned the idea of a Muppet movie in a meeting with Disney, but that it was taken seriously, which lead to him being commissioned to write the film.
 
"Oh no," he says emphatically. The truth is actually the other way around. "I was completely serious. They thought I was joking. Like why on earth would Jason Segel want to do the next Muppet movie? Because I had just done an R-rated comedy (Sarah) and at that point the way it works is that I could now do any R-rated comedy. That should be the logical next step. But it's just not what I wanted to do.
 
"So I went and pitched this movie and the next thing I knew we were writing."
 
As well as working hard to keep his star on the rise, Segel has a spiritual life of sorts. He is a minister with the non-denominational Universal Life Church. On 6 July he married a couple on The Tonight Show - at his request.
 
"I walked out of my house and on every lamp posts leading all the way to my local pub there was a sign that said `Jason Segel: Will You Marry Us?' asking me to officiate their wedding. As you can probably tell, I'm kind of a weird dude and so I called the Tonight Show," - he laughs - "and I asked them if I could marry a couple on the show. Then I called this couple and I say: `OK, I got your flyer. I'm not going to be there for the day of your wedding, but if you want I'll marry you tomorrow on the Tonight Show. They were freaked out!
The next thing you knew they showed up at the Tonight Show and I married them!"
 
So what is Segel's relationship with The Big Guy?
 
"It's a great question," he says. "I was raised with a Christian mother and a Jewish father, so I have the experience of both Episcopalian school and Hebrew school. I think what i came to believe, man, was while I'd like to say, `no', I certainly believe there is a God. My first instinct is to say, `I certainly know there's a God but, let's be honest, you can't really know. But I sure believe there is one.
 
"I don't believe in the exclusivity that's involved in organised religion. I just remember being a kid at Episcopalian school hearing that `if you're not one of (us) then you don't get it', and then at Hebrew school hearing `if your mother's not Jewish you don't get it'. I think I was very lucky that I got to have both experiences to see that it wasn't right."
 
Despicable Me begins next Thursday.

 

 

Questions

 

 

Does the prospect of Despicable Me excite you? What do you think of Jason Segel? Are you a fan of Forgetting Sarah Marshall? Or How I Met Your Mother? What about I Love You, Man? Was it a high water mark for bromance films? What do you think of Segel's spiritual sideline? Most importantly, has your life been given new meaning by the prospect of another Muppet movie?