Steve Carell has spoken about the adjustment of parenting grown-up children.
The Office alum, 63, spoke to Today about the two kids he shares with his wife, Nancy Walls Carell — Elisabeth Anne, 25, and John, 22 — and how his approach to parenting changed as they aged.
“It’s a cliche, but you love your kids and you would do anything for your kids. But, at a certain point, you have to let them make their own mistakes,” he said. “They’re not children anymore, and you have to respect the fact that they’re adults and they have their own wants and needs and their own directions that they choose to pursue.
“So, that’s a learning curve,” Carell added.
The Despicable Me voice actor also explained that while letting his children make choices for themselves, Carell has learned to be mindful of when to step in and offer them advice.
“I have a really good relationship with my daughter and I feel like there’s an inherent, mutual respect between us. I think she does respect my opinion, but I can’t always offer it. Sometimes I do, and most of the time I wait for her to ask,” he said.
“It’s a hard balancing act to be their dad while, at the same time, allow them to figure it out themselves because those battles that they have by themselves are the ones that are really going to give them strength and teach them something. It can’t all be handed to them.”
Carell’s comments come amid the release of his new HBO comedy series, Rooster. In the show, Carell plays Greg Russo, a successful author of “beach reads” whose protagonist is named Rooster. When Greg’s daughter Katie (played by Charly Clive), a professor at Ludlow College, finds herself in the middle of a humiliating breakup, he takes a job at the small liberal arts school to stay close to her.
The series, created by Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses, is Carell’s first outright television comedy since leaving The Office in 2011.
Carell said he was already a fan of Lawrence, but reading the pilot episode was all he needed to be “in instantly,” according to the Associated Press. He loved the tone and how unique it was.
While the show’s first episode premiered Sunday, subsequent episodes will be released on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET until the season finale May 10.
