Transcripts For WUSA 60 Minutes 20240622

We do it regularly. Odonnell but as youll hear tonight, genetic science has moved even further into the future. This woman believes the technology she used will stop the disease from stalking her family. You have said, the Breast Cancer stops with me. Yes. Its not just my children its their children and my grandchildren and great grandchildren, forever and for all time. Kroft steve carell has been one of hollywoods most recognizable comedy stars for nearly a decade now, both on television and in the movies. But no one recognized carell in his critically acclaimed portrayal of billionaire john e. Dupont in the truecrime film foxcatcher. Youre one of the most successful, highest paid actors in hollywood. Why would you want to take the chance . Well, when you put it that way, it was really an ill conceived idea. laughter im steve kroft. Im lesley stahl. Im morley safer. Im bill whitaker. Im norah odonnell. Im scott pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 minutes. Song Rachel Platten fight song two million, four hundred thirtyfour thousand three hundred eleven people in this city. And only one me. Ill take those odds. Be unstoppable. The allnew 2015 ford edge. Pelley it was Benjamin Franklin who wrote, nothing can be said to be certain but death and taxes. Turns out, with taxes, that may be true, but not so much with death. In america, the job of ultimately accounting for who is dead or alive belongs to the Social Security administration which compiles something called the death master file. There are about 86 million names on this National List of the deceased. And its deadly Serious Business because when youre added to the file, that means that banks, the i. R. S. , medicare, Law Enforcement and the like scratch you out of existence. But we found out that the death master file is often fatally flawed. As we first reported in march, a lot of people who pass on dont get on the list, which costs taxpayers billions of dollars in fraudulent payments to people standing in for the departed. And then, there are those who are on the death master file who are very surprised to hear that theyre dead. How many of you have been declared dead by the federal government . All of you. Youre looking pretty well to me. This would be a seance, except these are living, breathing americans that we conjured up from around the country, all declared dead by the Social Security administration. Don pilger passed away when he tried to report the death of his wife. This is a form from the Social Security administration. The idea was you were going to call this number and essentially report that your wife had passed. Don pilger exactly. And thats what i did on the following monday. Eight days later, i went to access my bank account and it was. They kept saying, invalid pin. So i went to the bank and i give the lady the problem i was having. She typed my numbers into the computer and she grabbed my hand, she says, mr. Pilger, i dont believe this. They reported you deceased and not your wife. Pelley kristina paces life was cut short at an early age. Kristina pace i was in college, i walked into the bank to open up an account, and same thing. We cant help you. Well, why . Youre coming up as deceased. You need to go to Social Security office. And i did. But just randomly, years later it would come up. Id want to get a car or something. Oh, no. Oh, let me guess. Im dead . So. Pelley Betty Denault was summoned to her Social Security office where the computer read like an epitaph. Betty denault and she pointed on the screen up in the corner and it said, d. O. D. And i said, what does d. O. D. Mean . And she said, date of death. And i said, well, how did you come up with this . And she said, all it takes is somebody to input on the computer the wrong numbers. And it just makes a big difference, of course. Pelley most people never find out how it happens, but when the federal computer says youre dead, you might as well be. The terrible news is relayed by the government to banks and credit agencies. Judy rivers told us she had 80,000 in her accounts, but when she tried to use a bank card at a store, they assumed she was an identity thief. You couldnt get access to your bank accounts. You couldnt get a credit card. How did you live . Judy rivers well, for a time, i lived in my car. And i couldnt get an apartment. I had my debit cards, which were, of course, no good. I used one without knowing the consequences, and was actually taken to jail and questioned because they thought i was an identity thief. Pelley you ended up arrested . Ended up living in your car because of all of this. Rivers for six months. Pelley you had been eliminated from the human race. Rivers cyber ghost. Pelley cyber ghost. Pilger cyber ghost. Pelley judy rivers now haunts a borrowed camper in alabama, and while her finances were ruined, she found that the government makes a tidy profit selling the death master file to credit agencies. So, word of her death was nearly immortal in dozens of databases, and it came back again and again. She protested to a Credit Agency called chexsystems for what seemed like an eternity. Rivers finally, chexsystems responded to me and told me to send my information in and they would consider it, after i had sent it to them over 20 times. Pelley they would consider whether you were still alive. Rivers correct. Pelley we looked in the Alabama Vital Records Office for rivers death notice, but its not there. No one seems to know how she got in the federal death master file. God may judge the quick and the dead, but its the states that collect the data. They pass it along to Social Security, and there is plenty of room for error. Record bureaus get death notices from doctors, hospitals, funeral homes, or families, and every state has its own rules. Perhaps because the dead dont vote, many of the states dont spend much keeping tabs on them. This is the state of alabama vital records vault. It is a place so secure that you need a key and a fingerprint to get inside. But once in here, the Technology Becomes pretty 19th century. These are death certificates from 1912, for example. All in all, there are 17 million paper records in here. Now, the state of alabama is moving toward an electronic system, and its about 60 of the way there. But theres so little funding around the country for that kind of transition that there are about a dozen states in america that do not have a statewide Electronic Filing system for death records. How accurate is the death master file . Patrick ocarroll i guess, the best way to say it is as accurate as it can be. Pelley Patrick Ocarroll is the Social Security administrations Inspector General. His Office Investigates how the death master file is used and abused. Ocarroll right now, the death master file has in it about 86 million records in it and it gets about two million records every year from the states. And were probably, as with everything else, as strong as the weakest link, in terms that some states are reporting electronically, have very good data. And then with other states, its done on a more haphazard level. So again, theres going to be some falling through the cracks there. Pelley but ocarroll told us that live people falling through the cracks isnt what keeps him up at night. The much more costly problem is in the millions of americans who do die and are not recorded. Your office found that Social Security had no death data for six and a half Million People over the age of 111. Do you really believe that there are six and a half Million People over the age of 111 in this country . Ocarroll no, and in fact, thats why we did the audit on it. What we were finding is that people that were over 112 years of age were opening up bank accounts, and it got us suspicious. And we found that 6. 5 million was not recorded as being deceased in ssas records. Pelley how many people are over the age of 111 in this country . Ocarroll im thinking ten. Pelley most federal agencies depend on the death master file, so if a death isnt listed federal payments just keep coming. We wondered what that would add up to during the course of a year, but it turns out, no one in the federal government is keeping an overall count. The best we could come up with was a few reports from individual agencies. For example, the department of agriculture paid farm subsidies and Disaster Assistance to more than 170,000 dead people over six years. That came to 1. 1 billion. The office of Personnel Management paid dead federal retirees a little over a billion. And in 2010 alone, the i. R. S. Paid more than 400 million in refunds to the dead. Social security doesnt know how many retirement and disability checks are cashed by the relatives of the dead, like Sandra Kimbro. Sandra kimbro im a. A wife, a mother, a grandmother, and now a felon. Pelley like a lot of people, she took in her aging, ill mother, and had a joint bank account with her. When her mother died, the disability benefits kept coming. When did she die . Kimbro she died. 1984. Pelley when she died, did you report her death to Social Security . Kimbro i did not. Pelley why not . Kimbro i thought perhaps it would have been taken care of by the funeral director at some point. Pelley were you surprised that these benefits kept coming to you . Kimbro no, not initially because i had had a conversation with my mom prior to her death that i would be entitled to the benefits. So i had just assumed and went along with that, thinking that i was entitled. Kimbro over a 30year period, 160,000. Pelley though she took the checks for three decades otherwise, Sandra Kimbro is no ones idea of a thief. She and her husband had good fulltime jobs through retirement, a solid middle class life, and raised two children. But then came an unexpected call from Social Security. The investigator from Social Security mustve asked where your mother was . Kimbro oh, well, i explained to him immediately. I didnt try to say that she was alive. I said that she was deceased. Pelley Social Security suspected as much because it is using a clever new tool. Ocarroll so, we go to medicare and see if anybody hasnt been to medicare for three years. And if they havent been, we then, you know, try to go out and make a phone call to them, see if theyre, you know, still here. Also, we look at people that reach 100 years of age, and try to reach out and see if theyre, you know, doing well. Pelley Sandra Kimbros mother would have been 93 and hadnt used medicare in 30 years. Kimbro was charged with theft, pled guilty, and is now looking at at least a year in prison. She spoke with us, she said, to warn others. Kimbro ive spent 66 years no criminal history. Havent done nothing wrong lived a good life, did everything i was supposed to do, be a lawabiding citizen, and succumbed to this human error. And this is where i am. And obviously, felon is not compatible with the other three things that i said, but it is my reality. Pelley Inspector General Patrick Ocarroll says that Social Security is managing about 150 convictions a year, a fraction of the total. But it adds up to about 55 million in fraud. Ocarroll what were trying to do is get the word out there, is, if you do take it and youre not supposed to do it, were going to find you, were going to arrest you, and were going to get the money back. Pelley over the last decade, ocarroll has made 70 recommendations to Social Security to reform the death master file. But he says theres little sense of urgency. Is part of the problem here that, in washington, 50 million or 100 million a year just isnt a very big number . Ocarroll its interesting you bring that up, because i deal in very big numbers. About 2 billion go out every day. So, when you start taking a look at percentages of 2 billion thats what to you, me, to a general taxpayer is going to be extremely large amounts of money really, percentagewise, is small compared to whats going out every day. Pelley as for the living whove been declared dead, Social Security told us we work very hard to correct errors when we learn of them. The agency said that its error rate is only one third of 1 . But that still adds up to about 9,000 americans killed off by the government each year. For them, it can be a long road to resurrection. It took judy rivers five years. And today, she carries a few credit cards, and something else. You carry a letter around with you. Rivers all the time. Pelley . Everywhere you go. What does it say . Rivers its from the Social Security office, and i have it updated once a month. And it says that. Who i am what my Social Security number is, that i have been mistakenly declared as deceased in the past, and that that is not correct, and im alive and well, or at least alive. Pelley and you have that updated every month . Rivers every month. Pelley why . Rivers because when you get to about three months, people look at the date and say, well, this is old. You know, you couldve died since then. Pelley after we first broadcast this story, senators ron johnson and tom carper introduced a bill to ensure that improper payments to the dead stop, 4nand the living stay off the death master file. As for Sandra Kimbro, a federal judge has sentenced her to six months in prison. Cbs money watch update sponsored by lincoln financial calling all chief life officers. Glor good evening. Greeks decisively voted no in a rushed referendum, perhaps setting up a euro zone exit. Chinas stock market is plunging and tomorrow most of the famed futuresdi trang tips in new york and chicago will close for good. Im jeff glor, cbs news. Odonnell there are few fields of medicine that are having a bigger impact on how we treat disease than genetics. As we reported in october, the science of genetics has gotten so sophisticated so quickly that it can be used to not only treat serious diseases, but prevent thousands of them well before pregnancy even begins. Diseases that have stalked families for generations, like Breast Cancer, are being literally stopped in their tracks. Scientists can do that by creating and testing embryos in a lab, then implanting into a mothers womb only the ones which appear healthy. While the whole field is loaded with controversy, those who are worried about passing on defective and potentially dangerous genes see the opportunity to breed out disease. Did you ever envision that you would have the capability you have today . Mark hughes no, but thats the fun of science, its constantly surprising you. Odonnell dr. Mark hughes is one of the scientists leading the way in a rapidly growing field known as reproductive genetics. He pioneered a technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or p. G. D. Hughes this ones got a minustwo. Odonnell . An embryo screening procedure that can identify deadly gene mutations and alter a childs genetic destiny. Hughes we all throw genetic dice when we have children, but when you know the dice are loaded and that theres a really reasonable chance that your baby will have an incurable, dreadful condition, youre looking for an alternative. Odonnell dr. Hughes helped develop p. G. D. Two decades ago to screen embryos for one disease, cystic fibrosis. Today, because of advances in the mapping of the human genome, he says it can be used to root out virtually any disease caused by a single defective gene. Let me do a rapid fire yes or no. Can you use p. G. D. For tay sachs . Hughes yes. Odonnell muscular dystrophy . Hughes yes. Odonnell sickle cell anemia . Hughes yes. Odonnell hemophilia . Hughes yes. Odonnell huntingtons disease . Hughes its one of the most common disorders we test for yes. Odonnell alzheimers disease . Hughes if its a mutation in a particular gene that causes early onset, we can test for it, yes. Odonnell so you can test for alzheimers. Hughes this is a small subset of a particular kind of alzheimers that attacks very early in life. Odonnell colon cancer . Hughes if we know which of the colon cancer genes, yes. Odonnell Breast Cancer . Hughes we do it regularly. Odonnell dr. Hughes lab is one of a handful in the country that provides this genetic testing, which is why 3,000 couples turn to him each year, among them, matt and melinda who asked that we not use their last name. If they hadnt done the embryo screening procedure, their four yearold son mason and his baby sister marian might very well have been born with a genetic mutation that increases the risk of breast, ovarian, prostate and pancreatic cancer. It wasnt until melinda herself was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Breast Cancer seven years ago that she found out she carried that gene mutation known as brca1. Did you know what brca1 was . Melinda not a clue. Odonnell but as it turned out, it had haunted her family for generations. At age 29, facing chemotherapy and a double mastectomy, melinda was afraid that if she had children one day, they would also be cursed with that potentially deadly mutation. What did doctors tell you about the risk of passing on this brca mutation . Melinda 50 , so flip a coin. Odonnell and i bet that weighed on you even heavier. Melinda yes. Its a lifetime of having to worry about it, and i just didnt. I didnt want my kids to have to do that. Odonnell the best way to ensure that was to do embryo screening for the brca1 gene mutation, which dr. Hughes says is among the fastestgrowing parts of his business. Hughes this takes the risk. For example, in Breast Cancer, it takes the risk if you have this mutation from 50 50 of passing it to the next generation down to less than 1 . Odonnell but the screening isnt easy. All couples, even fertile ones must first go through invitro fertilization, the process in which a mans sperm is injected into a womans eggs under a microscope to create embryos. Then, five days later, a tiny tube just one 20th the diameter of a human hair is used to extract from each embryo one single cell to be genetically tested for disease. Its just one cell . Hughes yes. Odonnell you can tell that much from one cell . Hughes you can tell an awful lot in one cell. Odonnell that cell is packed up at fertility clinics across the country and shipped overnight in ordinarylooking boxes like these to screening labs. We followed the process at dr. Hughes lab, called genesis genetics, just outside detroit where a team of scientists took over. So what do you do with that one cell when it arrives here . Hughes well, were busy. We have to break the cell open. They have to pull out this enormous encyclopedia of Genetic Information. Odonnell hes talking about the cells dna, our genetic code that scientists represent with four letters a, c, t and g. For a gene to work properly, the letters have to be strung together in the right order. If theyre not, that could spell trouble. Its dr. Hughes job to find the mutation, or typo, in a gene that could cause disease. Hughes so you have to find that typo in, effectively, six billion letters. Odonnell a typo in six billion letters . Hughes yeah. Odonnell so how do you do that . Hughes technology is amazing. Odonnell dr. Hughes used the technology to screen matt and melindas embryos in 2010, ruling out the ones that carried have given their children a reasonable chance of getting breast or other cancers. About how many of them tested positive for the brca gene . Hughes about half and, indeed, if you look at her embryos, here is an affected, an affected, an affected, an affected thats four. Its about half. It is just what youd expect. Odonnell its just what youd expect in nature. But with the powerful intervention of science, embryos that carry a harmful mutation are often discarded, which is one reason the decision to go ahead with the screening was a difficult one for matt and melinda. Melinda we prayed a lot about it. Its a hard decision to make. Odonnell what did you struggle with . Melinda was it right . Was it the right thing to do . Is that. Is it playing god . Is it ethical . And the more we learned about it and got comfortable with the idea, it was like, yes, absolutely. Odonnell you have said, the Breast Cancer stops with me . Melinda yes. Its not just my children its their children and my grandchildren and great grandchildren, forever and for all time, in my bloodline, yeah. Odonnell the entire process cost them around 16,000, a small price to pay, melinda says, for her childrens health. Anne morriss oh, lets try that one again. Odonnell but anne morriss didnt get to change the odds for her child. By the time she learned she carried a dangerous mutation she had already passed it on to her son, whos now seven. At birth, alec seemed the picture of health, but then came an unexpected call from a doctor. Morriss he started by saying, can you please go check and make sure that your child is still alive, and then come back and we can continue this discussion. Odonnell so a doctor calls you and says, i need to tell you something but can you go check that your son is still alive. Morriss thats how the conversation started. Odonnell what was your reaction . Morriss you know, your. Your heart just falls out of you. Odonnell a newborn Screening Test revealed alec had a rare and sometimes fatal metabolic disorder called mcad deficiency. He had to be fed every few hours just to stay alive. Morriss lets see what you got, buddy. Odonnell unlike Breast Cancer, mcad deficiency is a recessive disorder, meaning a child must inherit a copy of the faulty gene from both parents. Anne morriss had used an anonymous sperm donor to conceive, but in an incredible case of bad luck, he just happened to carry the same mutation she did. Morriss every human being walking the planet is a carrier for a rare disease. But what matters is who we choose to partner with reproductively. Like, thats where the risk shows up. Odonnell now, she wants to reduce the risk of a bad genetic match for others well before they start the reproductive process. She just started a Company Called genepeeks with lee silver, a Princeton University professor whos also a molecular biologist, though his latest idea doesnt take place in a lab. Its entirely virtual. Lee silver we are creating digital babies. Odonnell digital babies . Silver yes. Odonnell so youre simulating the process of reproduction, but on a computer. Silver exactly. Odonnell silver says all it takes is a saliva sample to obtain dna. He then combines the Genetic Information from both prospective parents in a computer to make a thousand digital babies. This is a digital baby. Silver this is a digital baby. Odonnell it contains virtual dna, which, like real dna, is represented by those same four letters a, c, t and g. Silver this baby has a mutation. Odonnell he says that by analyzing the dna in all those digital babies, he is able to calculate the risk of two people conceiving a child with any one of 500 severe recessive pediatric disorders. For now, genepeeks is available for 2,000 to clients using sperm banks and egg donors to conceive, though its founders say the goal is to expand it to all couples who want to have a baby. You think everyone whos going to have a baby should go and have a digital baby first . Silver i see a future in which people will not use sex to reproduce. Thats a very dangerous thing to do. Odonnell that may sound farfetched, but the way lee silver sees it, there will come a time when couples will no longer want to conceive naturally because its too risky. Silver its safer to have a baby with this preknowledge that might help them avoid disease. Odonnell but with the promise of this technology also comes the fear that some parents would want to use it to select genetic traits in their children that have nothing to do with disease, a debate lee silver himself stoked when he wrote the patent for genepeeks. We read your patent and it says your technology could be used to assess whether a child could have other traits like eye color, hair color, social intelligence, even whether a child will have a widows peak . If your company is so focused on preventing disease, why would you include those traits . Silver the purpose of the list of traits is simply to demonstrate that our technology can be used to study anything thats genetically influenced. That doesnt mean were going to actually do that. Odonnell okay, but youre running a company. That could be big business. Silver we are the. The ones who invented this technology, and were going to use it to study pediatric disease. At the moment, we will. We will make sure the technology is used only for that purpose. Odonnell and at the moment, youll have to take his word for it because there are no real rules in this country limiting what this kind of technology can be used to screen for, leaving those decisions up to scientists like lee silver and mark hughes. So, we should trust you to set the boundaries . Hughes if im setting a boundary, saying, im not willing to do that, thats no different from any other field of medicine, so sure. Odonnell but do you wrestle with this thought at all . I mean, who is the gatekeeper . Hughes thats the question. Should it be some group sitting around a mahogany table, or should it be all left up to the patient. If it would get to the point where it was like cosmetic surgery, that would be downright awful. But i think those are all straw men arguments, and people asked me these very questions that youre asking me right now, 25 years ago. And it hasnt happened. Odonnell thats in part because researchers still only fully understand traits and diseases caused by a single flawed gene. Theres a lot left to learn about the interaction of multiple genes. But when that happens, mark hughes and lee silver believe their technologies will be able to screen for a host of genetically complex diseases that they say could include schizophrenia, and some types of diabetes and heart disease. Silver i think its going to be used by society in the 21st century, just like we used antibiotics and other advances in the 20th century to drastically reduce the risk of infectious disease. Were going to be able to drastically reduce the risk of genetic disease. Odonnell youre comparing this ability with reproductive genetics to antibiotics and vaccinations . Silver i am. And in some ways, this is more powerful. Odonnell because of how quickly the industry is growing, last fall, the fda proposed guidelines to review certain genetic testing to ensure the Technology Used in the diagnosis of serious diseases is accurate and safe. An now a cbs sports update brought to you by prevnar. At the greenbrier classic in west virginia, danny lee won in a fourman playoff his first tour victory for the 24yearold. And major league baseball, the blue jays dominated the tigers, the rays topped the yankees and the royals beat the twins. For more sports news and information, go to cbssports. Com. This is jim nantz reporting from White Sulphur springs, west virginia. Why are we watching this again . I pay for all these channels, so i make myself watch them all. Joey, ill watch anything except this. Except this. Go back, go back, go back, go back, go back, go back. Fios custom tv lets you pay for the types of channels you want, not the ones you dont. 100 fiber optics is here. Get out of the past. Get fios. Now for 79. 99 a month. Go online or call. Call the Verizon Center for customers with disabilities at 800. 974. 6006 tty v kroft for years now, steve carell has been one of hollywoods most reliable and highestpaid comedy stars, both on television and in the movies, a gifted, versatile performer equally adept at sophisticated or sophomoric humor. But carell says hes always considered himself an actor who does comedy, not a comedian. Its particularly noteworthy because he turned in one of the most unusual and remarkable screen performances of 2014 in a film called foxcatcher. As we first reported in november, the role is about as far away from carells personal and professional persona as you can get, which always entails a certain amount of risk. This is the steve carell audiences have become familiar with over nearly a decade the lamebrained weatherman in the movie anchorman. The hairy 40yearold virgin who was told he needed his chest waxed. Were going to need more wax steve carell you bleep kroft . And the well meaning Office Manager who always managed to come up with just the wrong words. Carell let me ask you is there a term besides mexican that you prefer . Something less offensive . laughing good one. Kroft but no one is going to recognize steve carell in foxcatcher, as the dark, delusional, drug addicted, and ultimately dangerous heir to one of americas oldest fortunes. Carell i am a patriot and i want to see this country soar again. I want that, too. Kroft carell plays john e. Dupont, who, in the 1980s, became the patron to some of the best young wrestlers in the country, enticing them to his 600acre pennsylvania estate with a lavish Training Facility and dreams of olympic gold. Carell as coach, i want you to be champions in sport and winners in life. Kroft it was different than anything you had ever done. Carell completely different. I felt like i was experiencing something, as opposed to going in and acting for a camera. It was a different thing. Kroft youre one of the most successful, highestpaid actors in hollywood. Why would you want to take the chance . Carell well, when you put it that way, it was really an ill conceived idea. laughter and im. Frankly, im glad we didnt have this talk when i was considering doing this. Well, why not . Because it was exciting, and it was potentially something great. And why wouldnt you want to be part of Something Like that . Kroft it turned out to be a very good decision. The truecrime psychodrama about wealth, patriotism, class, manipulation, and murder has already won acclaim at film festivals around the world. And so has carells performance in a magnificent ensemble cast that includes Channing Tatum mark ruffalo and vanessa redgrave. Director bennet miller, whose other films, capote and moneyball, were both nominated for academy awards, spent eight years working on foxcatcher. He didnt want anyone obvious to play dupont. He was looking for someone benign and nonthreatening who had never shot anyone in a movie before. When carells name came up miller booked a lunch. Bennett miller to be totally honest with you, right after our first lunch, something inside of me just clicked. You know, the coin dropped and i thought, oh, i could see that. I want that. Kroft what happened at the lunch . What did he do during the lunch . What did he say during the lunch that made you think that he was right . Miller deadly serious. Deadly, deadly serious. Somebody who had read the script and had done some research. And part of it is a commitment knowing that youre both feet in. And that it might not necessarily be easy, but that, i get it. And whatever it takes. Kroft what it took was three months of long days on a lonely shoot with a small cast and crew outside pittsburgh. They would go over and often rework scenes well into the Early Morning hours. There was not much time for small talk. Did you stay in character . Carell not in an actory sort of way, but i think inadvertently, we all sort of did. Kroft some of it had to do with carells makeup. He was almost always the first one on the set, because it took three hours to apply. He wore it all day until the shooting was over. Carell i think that just sort of lent to being in character. When i was around other people i got the sense that they didnt feel like they were around steve. They were around this other person. Kroft that mustve been pretty intense. Carell it was intense. The whole thing was intense. Kroft did you enjoy this . Carell i did. It wasnt fun, but i enjoyed it. Kroft carell has never been afraid of hard work or big challenges. He was born 52 years ago, and raised in an upper middleclass family in acton, massachusetts the youngest of four boys. His father was an engineer, his mother a psychiatric nurse. At Dennison University in ohio he graduated with a degree in history and theater, and preferring the latter, set off to chicago to try and make a career. After a few years as a starving actor, he got his first big break with the famed second city comedy company, which has produced the likes of bill murray, harold ramis, dan aykroyd, john belushi, and tina fey. Thats a big job. Carell big job. Second city in chicago was one of the best gigs you can have, i think, in chicago. It was a big deal. You know, im going on about myself. What do you do . Oh, im a waitress at the crab shanty. Carell no way yeah. Carell i used to stalk a woman from the crab shanty. laughter kroft for five years, he often performed seven or eight shows a week before live audiences, perfecting his timing, expressions, and reactions while improvising a reservoir of characters that would serve him in the years to come. All of it was done alongside incredibly talented people including his future wife, nancy walls, and stephen colbert, who he would later join in new york in the earliest years of the daily show with jon stewart. They were correspondents on the daily show together for five years, during which it rose from a blip in the cable ratings to a mainstream hit. Next question, yes or no. Yes no yes does the French Election signal the reemergence of fascism in europe . Oui. No. Oui carell that was a terrifying show to do, at first. Kroft why . Carell you cant really describe it, professionally. Because youre not really. Youre sort of an actor, but not really. Youre definitely improvising. Youre sort of a correspondent. Journalist. But none of us had any sort of journalistic background, so you were winging it and pretending. We all dressed in suits, and we went. And we had little daily show logos on our microphones. And no one knew the show. And they just thought, oh, you know, some cable outlet is covering the debate. Kroft and before the politicians caught on, it produced moments like this one. Carell how do you reconcile the fact that youre one of the most vocal critics of pork barrel politics, and yet while you were chairman of the commerce committee, that committee set a record for unauthorized appropriations . Im just kidding no, i dont even know what that means. Kroft carell left the daily show in 2005, and in less than six months, he had already filmed a pilot for an american version of a british sitcom called the office, plus a movie he had cowritten with producer judd apatow based on a sketch hed developed at second city. Carell the idea that i had was a group of guys playing poker, and just regaling each other with stories of sexual conquest, and one guy who clearly didnt have a frame of reference and was trying to keep up with these stories. Are you a virgin . Yeah, not since i was ten. It all makes sense. Youre a virgin. You guys are hilarious. Kroft the 40yearold virgin would gross more than 100 million, and over the course of one weekend, change carells life. His popularity propelled the office to a sevenyear run, at the end of which carell would be making 300,000 an episode. And his career has not slowed down. By our count, he has made 24 movies in the past 14 years, but he doesnt care much for celebrity, and he tries to stay as far away from the limelight as he possibly can. Most people who are in comedy, and most people in show business, like to be the center of attention. I dont get that sense from you. Carell i hate it. Its embarrassing. Kroft why . Carell i just have never liked it. And it sounds like im being precious when i say that because i always did plays and i was always on stage. But that was different, because it wasnt me. But just as myself, yeah, i dont crave it. I dont know. I just dont. It makes me uncomfortable. Kroft when hes not on location, carell splits his time between l. A. And marshfield hills, massachusetts, where he and his wife nancy bought and restored this general store and post office that goes back to the civil war. Both of their extended families still live around here, and they were afraid that someone would turn the store, which anchors the village, into a real estate office. So you bought this place right when your career was beginning to take off. Carell yeah. Yeah, and as a fallback. laughter just thought, you know what . If it all goes south, i still can man the Cash Register and sell penny candy. No, its neat. I mean, its a gathering place. And thats. That was the draw for me, a place that people can come and hang out, and there arent that many places like that anymore. Kroft carells sisterinlaw runs the place, and steve and nancy spend their summers and holidays here with their two children, to give them a taste of life outside los angeles. Carell i wanted to show you this. My mom knitted this. She. And she put a little. And these are for sale. Kroft really . Carell yeah, she put a little tag on it. Made by hand by harriet carell. Kroft wow, how many of these does she crank out . Carell oh, i have her working day and night. laughter she. Because these things turn over like, come on, mom. You have to pay for the roof of the house. Lets go. Kroft its beautiful. I can see why she would want her name on it. Carell youre not taking it, you buy that. laughter kroft when the cameras arent rolling, the private carell seems to be more shy, quiet and reserved, keeping his feelings and his opinions about things to himself. He and his wife nancy are widely considered to be among the most normal people in hollywood. They drive their kids to school, rarely go out to glitzy events and if they do, dont stick around for the party afterwards. Nancy, another veteran of second city and the daily show, and saturday night live, says she was blown away by her husbands performance in foxcatcher. Nancy carell i just watched that, and i just pretty. Almost immediately forgot that i was watching my husband up there. That was amazing to me. Kroft he says hes not really a comedian, hes. Hes not that funny in real life, that hes not a good conversationalist, that hes very socially awkward. Is that true . Nancy carell what an attractive portrait you paint of yourself. laughter yeah, hes a real dud. No. No, of course not. No, he. Hes very funny. He just doesnt try as hard, he doesnt feel the need to entertain people on a, you know, 24hour basis. Kroft with that said, steve carell laid back and did what he does about as well as anyone else play the straight man. Did you ever think it was going to turn out this way . That youd be living here with all this money and all this fame and. Nancy carell i was counting on it. laughter kroft why do i feel like im in an improv sketch . Steve carell oh, its what our kids deal with every day. Nancy carell no. I had every faith in your success. I knew hed be successful. But i think we thought hed be successful in the don knotts kind of way. laughter seriously, though. But, like, you know, barney fife was an. I mean, thats an incredible character on a tv show. And thats. That was my dream for you. Steve carell thank you. Nancy carell youre welcome. Steve kroft talks about Steve Carells transition from comic actor to movie villain. Go to 60minutesovertime. Com. Sponsored by lyrica. Kroft im steve kroft. Well be back next week with another edition of 60 minutes. 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