The reason behind Steve Carell belting out Kelly Clarkson’s name is pretty simple actually and part of the blame falls on Seth Rogen’s shoulders according to the writers at Looper. Out of all the things he could say though, and Rogen actually wrote out a list, Clarkson’s name was somehow added to the litany of nonsense that Carell could pick from and her name was what he belted out after a few utterances that have been immortalized to this day. It’s kind of obvious that Clarkson would be a little confused as to why a man getting his chest waxed would call out her name, but once she heard the reason she actually appeared a little crestfallen, or maybe relieved that it really was random, since Steve had so many other things he could have said. Given that 2005 was a big year for Clarkson it’s not too hard to think that someone would make bank on that and push her name wherever they could. But a lot of people have wondered about this over the years and some folks thought it was just random happenstance. It was in a way, but there was still a purpose behind it, kind of.
Any guy that can watch the waxing scene without wincing at least once has either done it before, and it does happen more often than people think, or they simply have no aversion to pain in the slightest. Personally I found myself holding my chest and wincing with a couple of pulls while laughing aloud since the fact is: Steve Carell really did this. The chest waxing scene isn’t faked and it’s not a gimmick of any sort, he sat through this process and that emotion you see isn’t all faked. If that makes you wince don’t feel too bad about it since the pain that virgin waxers feel is something that is absolutely off the charts since no one is expecting that kind of trauma all at once, and if a person is as hairy as Carell, oh yes, it’s going to hurt. You’re physically ripping your hairs out of your body, meaning you are removing something that was not made to be removed in this manner, at least not in an easy fashion. Bodybuilders have their own methods of removing body hair since they tend to lose points for being fur-bearing mammals, but a lot of times if they wax they’ve been doing this long enough that they’re used to the pain.
But if a person only does this once in a blue moon, it’s going to hurt like hell. But Carell, taking one for the team and going the authentic route, managed to summon up the gumption to lay down on the table and sputter some nonsense and in the process picked out Kelly Clarkson’s name on a piece of paper. The funny part about this is that the moment became iconic in this movie and in pop culture as it can still be heard and seen as a GIF and in a lot of memes. To be fair I even had this as a ring tone at one time when flip phones were still considered to be cool. Yes, they were at one point. Steve has been known far and wide for several of his roles at this point but this is the one that really managed to skyrocket his career to the next level since it gave him such a great phrase way to connect with the audience. After this the rest of the movie is still hilarious but this was one of the best moments, hands down, EVER. The fact that he was verbally abusing the poor woman doing the waxing was insanely hilarious as well since she took it so well and because he was apologizing profusely for a good part of the process. But try and tell me that the line “Oh we’re gonna need more wax! And clear all my appointments in the afternoon!”, wasn’t funny and I’ll tell you watch it again since the humor in this entire scene is just contagious. The fact that Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen added to it by so eagerly watching the proceeding was even better.
So Kelly might have had to realize that her name wasn’t much of a special utterance and was do more to chance than anything, but hopefully she slept better knowing that Carell didn’t harbor any strange fascination with her, or that she wasn’t being made the butt of a joke. Her name was thrown out for the heck of it really, something on a list to pick from that would sound random and amusing, and it did in a big way. If nothing else she might be able to take away the fact that it was meant to be funny and just go with it.
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