Flagrantly Random

Anyone who has seen The 40-Year-Old Virgin will distinctly remember the body waxing scene where Andy (Steve Carell) gets his chest hairs ripped off one strip at a time. It turns out, it wasn’t faked at all! Here’s a hilarious behind the scenes clip from the shoot, as well as an excerpt from an interview with Paul Rudd and Steve Carell:

Q: Can you talk a little bit about the waxing scene? Did you in fact get your chest waxed?

Carell: That was 100% real. We set up 5 cameras because we knew it would be one take. There would be no way in going back and doing it again. So we set up a camera on the guys, one over me, one specifically on my chest, one on the waxer… and it was not scripted. We just had an idea for where it would go. We hired a woman who was an actress/waxer-er. [Laughter]

Rudd: A waxtress.

Carell: A waxtress, yes! So, that was all real. If you watch closely, there’s one close-up where you can see blood actually beading to the surface. So that was not CGI. When I pitched it to Judd, I said it really had to be real. It had to be legitimate waxing. I thought that to see [the co-stars] laughing at me in pain would probably be the funniest part of the scene. There’s this guy thing… this sadistic nature that men have to see other men in non-life-threatening pain. And especially self-inflicted. Like the whole ball to the nuts… a kick in the nuts. It’s just funny. You can’t help but laugh at it if you’re a guy because you know you’re not going to die. So to kinda capture that on camera I thought would be really amusing.

Rudd: And it really was! Very little acting required in that scene.

Carell: It hurt so much. It really did hurt. [Paul laughs] And the women in the crew said they were aware of what was going to happen… I didn’t. And they said, “Are you sure you don’t wanna trim your hair down a little bit? It will hurt less. Can I get you some Advil?” And I kept saying, “No no no, I’m fine. I’m fine!” And then halfway through, I was just sweating and I thought this was a bad idea.

Rudd: Didn’t you say that when you’re waxing there’s some sort of oil or something that they’re supposed to put?

Carell: Well, they’re supposed to put… for the nipple… a little oil and then the wax so that your nipple doesn’t actually come off. [Laughter] And they started it without doing that! And I was like, “Hey! Hey!” But it was really a fun day. It was a day I both dreaded and looked forward to equally.

All I can say is, I am in awe of Carell’s commitment to comedy. You can read the full interview here. It’s a bit old, but still damn funny.