The film that made Steve Carell a movie star, The 40-Year-Old Virgin has frequently been voted one of the greatest comedies ever made.
How much do you know about Judd Apatow's first movie? Unless your answer is "literally everything" then we expect at least a few of these facts will be news to you.
The casting of this film is a testament to director Judd Apatow's genius.
Unfortunately for the film, she was just an extra, and she didn't have any lines. We'd have to turn to "The Office" to see Fischer's hilarious deadpan.
They were happy to find that their character was pretty close to a lot of real 40-year-old virgin men.
They were rewarded by the film company, Technicolor, with bottles of champagne.
Apatow wasn't on board with that plan, at first. He eventually appreciated the weight loss because it emphasized that Carell's character is inexperienced because he's shy, not unattractive.
Thankfully, the filmmakers decided on Lynch instead. There's no way a male character would have been as funny as she ended up being.
He was worried enough to ask the writing team to come up with a profanity-free version of the script.
They thought that Paul Rudd was "too fat." They thought Carrell's character looked like "a serial killer." The studio resumed filming when Rudd went on a crash diet and Carrell reduced the intensity of his performance.
Carrell himself insisted that the scene would be much funnier if he really got his chest waxed. So those howls of pain you hear are actually genuine.
That's an approach that also made "The Office" such a hit. Get a bunch of funny people in a room and let the cameras roll; seems like a pretty good strategy.
