I could tell from the first time I met Ryan that he was going to something different with his character in Crazy, Stupid, Love. It could have been a very typical bon-vivant cliche. He was charming and he was a ladies’ man, but he did it without being off-putting. He did it with a real sense of grace. And he did that with all of his characters this year.

You never see Ryan trying too hard. A lot of people responded to how incredibly goodlooking he was and what a great physique he had. When he took his shirt off, as a producer on the movie, I thought, “He’s exactly what that guy should look like.” But that’s not who Ryan is. In his mind, he was just becoming a character.  He read that part of the script where Emma Stone’s character says, “Seriously? It’s like your photoshopped,” and he took that piece of information and worked out to a point where he actually did look Photoshopped. But it wasn’t coming from a place of vanity; it was an actor’s choice. And there’s a really big difference between those two things. I just think he’s capable of anything as an actor. And people have only begun to see what he can do. — Steve Carell [Entertainment Weekly]