captioning funded by cbs and ford >> pelley: how many of you have been declared dead by the federal government? all of you. 86 million names are on a list called the death master file. if your name is on it, the social security administration has declared you dead, and shared that with banks, law enforcement, and many government agencies you might depend on. you couldn't get access to your bank accounts. you couldn't get a credit card. how did you live? >> well, for a time, i lived in my car. >> o'donnell: muscular dystrophy? >> yes. >> o'donnell: sickle-cell anemia? >> yes. >> o'donnell: hemophilia? >> yes. >> o'donnell: they're all diseases that can be identified by advanced genetic screenings. huntington's disease? >> it's one of the most common disorders we test for, yes. >> o'donnell: breast cancer?

>> we do it regularly. >> o'donnell: but as you'll 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. it's not just my children-- it's their children and my grandchildren and great grandchildren, forever and for all time. >> kroft: steve carell has been one of hollywood's 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 true-crime film "foxcatcher." you're 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 )

>> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm bill whitaker. >> i'm norah o'donnell. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes."

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>> 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 it's deadly serious business because when you're 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 don't 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 they're dead. how many of you have been declared dead by the federal government? all of you. you're looking pretty well to me. this would be a séance, 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 that's 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 don't believe this. they reported you deceased and not your wife." >> pelley: kristina pace's 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 can't help you."

"well, why?" "you're coming up as deceased. you need to go to social security office." and i did. but just randomly, years later it would come up. i'd want to get a car or something. "oh, no." "oh, let me guess. i'm 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 you're 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 couldn't get access to your bank accounts. you couldn't get a credit card. how did you live? >> judy rivers: well, for a time, i lived in my car. and i couldn't 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 it's 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 it's 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 don't

vote, many of the states don't 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 it's about 60% of the way there. but there's 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 o'carroll: i guess, the best way to say it is as accurate as it can be. >> pelley: patrick o'carroll is the social security administration's inspector general.

his office investigates how the death master file is used and abused. >> o'carroll: 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 we're 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, it's done on a more haphazard level. so again, there's going to be some falling through the cracks there. >> pelley: but o'carroll told us that live people "falling through the cracks" isn't 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? >> o'carroll: no, and in fact, that's 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 ssa's records. >> pelley: how many people are over the age of 111 in this country? >> o'carroll: i'm thinking ten. >> pelley: most federal agencies depend on the death master file, so if a death isn't 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 doesn't know how many retirement and disability checks are cashed by the relatives of the dead, like sandra kimbro. >> sandra kimbro: i'm 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 30-year period, $160,000. >> pelley: though she took the checks for three decades otherwise, sandra kimbro is no one's idea of a thief. she and her husband had good full-time 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 must've asked where your mother was? >> kimbro: oh, well, i explained to him immediately. i didn't 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. >> o'carroll: so, we go to medicare and see if anybody hasn't been to medicare for three years. and if they haven't been, we then, you know, try to go out and make a phone call to them, see if they're, you know, still here. also, we look at people that

reach 100 years of age, and try to reach out and see if they're, you know, doing well. >> pelley: sandra kimbro's mother would have been 93 and hadn't 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: i've spent 66 years no criminal history. haven't done nothing wrong lived a good life, did everything i was supposed to do, be a law-abiding 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 o'carroll 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. >> o'carroll: what we're trying to do is get the word out there, is, if you do take it and you're

not supposed to do it, we're going to find you, we're going to arrest you, and we're going to get the money back. >> pelley: over the last decade, o'carroll has made 70 recommendations to social security to reform the death master file. but he says there's little sense of urgency. is part of the problem here that, in washington, $50 million or $100 million a year just isn't a very big number? >> o'carroll: it's 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 that's what to you, me, to a general taxpayer is going to be extremely large amounts of money-- really, percentage-wise, is small compared to what's going out every day. >> pelley: as for the living who've 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: it's 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 i'm 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 could've 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, 4ñand 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. greek's decisively voted no in a rushed referendum, perhaps setting up a euro zone exit. china's stock market is plunging and tomorrow most of the famed futuresdi trang tips in new york and chicago will close for good. i'm jeff glor, cbs news.

>> o'donnell: 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 mother's 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 that's the fun of science, it's constantly surprising you.

>> o'donnell: 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 pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or p.g.d... >> hughes: this one's got a minus-two. >> o'donnell: ...an embryo screening procedure that can identify deadly gene mutations and alter a child's genetic destiny. >> hughes: we all throw genetic dice when we have children, but when you know the dice are loaded and that there's a really reasonable chance that your baby will have an incurable, dreadful condition, you're looking for an alternative. >> o'donnell: 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. >> o'donnell: muscular dystrophy? >> hughes: yes. >> o'donnell: sickle cell anemia?

>> hughes: yes. >> o'donnell: hemophilia? >> hughes: yes. >> o'donnell: huntington's disease? >> hughes: it's one of the most common disorders we test for yes. >> o'donnell: alzheimer's disease? >> hughes: if it's a mutation in a particular gene that causes early onset, we can test for it, yes. >> o'donnell: so you can test for alzheimer's. >> hughes: this is a small subset of a particular kind of alzheimer's that attacks very early in life. >> o'donnell: colon cancer? >> hughes: if we know which of the colon cancer genes, yes. >> o'donnell: breast cancer? >> hughes: we do it regularly. >> o'donnell: 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 hadn't done the embryo screening procedure, their four- year-old 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 wasn't 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. >> o'donnell: 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. >> o'donnell: and i bet that weighed on you even heavier. >> melinda: yes. it's a lifetime of having to worry about it, and i just didn't... i didn't want my kids to have to do that. >> o'donnell: the best way to ensure that was to do embryo screening for the brca1 gene mutation, which dr. hughes says is among the fastest-growing 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%. >> o'donnell: but the screening isn't easy. all couples, even fertile ones must first go through in-vitro fertilization, the process in which a man's sperm is injected into a woman's 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. it's just one cell? >> hughes: yes. >> o'donnell: you can tell that much from one cell? >> hughes: you can tell an awful lot in one cell. >> o'donnell: that cell is packed up at fertility clinics across the country and shipped overnight in ordinary-looking 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, we're busy. we have to break the cell open. they have to pull out this enormous encyclopedia of genetic information. >> o'donnell: he's talking about the cell's 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 they're not, that could spell trouble. it's 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. >> o'donnell: a typo in six billion letters? >> hughes: yeah. >> o'donnell: so how do you do that? >> hughes: technology is amazing. >> o'donnell: dr. hughes used the technology to screen matt and melinda's 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-- that's four. it's about half. it is just what you'd expect. >> o'donnell: it's just what you'd 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. it's a hard decision to make. >> o'donnell: 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." >> o'donnell: you have said, "the breast cancer stops with me"? >> melinda: yes. it's not just my children-- it's their children and my grandchildren and great grandchildren, forever and for all time, in my bloodline, yeah. >> o'donnell: the entire process cost them around $16,000, a small price to pay, melinda

says, for her children's health. >> anne morriss: oh, let's try that one again. >> o'donnell: but anne morriss didn't 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, who's 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." >> o'donnell: 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: that's how the conversation started. >> o'donnell: what was your reaction? >> morriss: you know, your... your heart just falls out of you. >> o'donnell: a newborn screening test revealed alec had a rare and sometimes fatal metabolic disorder called m-cad deficiency. he had to be fed every few hours just to stay alive. >> morriss: let's see what you got, buddy. >> o'donnell: unlike breast cancer, m-cad 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, that's where the risk shows up. >> o'donnell: 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 who's also a molecular biologist, though his latest idea doesn't take place in a lab. it's entirely virtual. >> lee silver: we are creating digital babies. >> o'donnell: digital babies? >> silver: yes. >> o'donnell: so you're simulating the process of reproduction, but on a computer.

>> silver: exactly. >> o'donnell: 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. >> o'donnell: 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. >> o'donnell: 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 who's 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. that's a very dangerous thing to do. >> o'donnell: that may sound far-fetched, but the way lee silver sees it, there will come a time when couples will no longer want to conceive naturally because it's too risky. >> silver: it's safer to have a baby with this pre-knowledge that might help them avoid disease. >> o'donnell: 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 widow's 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 that's genetically influenced. that doesn't mean we're going to actually do that. >> o'donnell: okay, but you're running a company. that could be big business. >> silver: we are the... the ones who invented this technology, and we're 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. >> o'donnell: and at the moment, you'll 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 i'm setting a boundary, saying, "i'm not willing to do that," that's no different from any other field of medicine, so sure. >> o'donnell: but do you wrestle with this thought at all? i mean, who is the gatekeeper? >> hughes: that's 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 you're asking me right now, 25 years ago. and it hasn't happened. >> o'donnell: that's in part because researchers still only fully understand traits and diseases caused by a single flawed gene. there's 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 it's 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.

we're going to be able to drastically reduce the risk of genetic disease. >> o'donnell: you're comparing this ability with reproductive genetics to antibiotics and vaccinations? >> silver: i am. and in some ways, this is more powerful. >> o'donnell: 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 four-man playoff his first tour victory for the 24-year-old. 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.

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>> kroft: for years now, steve carell has been one of hollywood's most reliable and highest-paid comedy stars, both on television and in the movies, a gifted, versatile performer equally adept at sophisticated or sophomoric humor. but carell says he's always considered himself an actor who does comedy, not a comedian. it's 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 carell's 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 lame-brained weatherman in the movie "anchorman"... the hairy 40-year-old virgin who was told he needed his chest waxed...

>> we're 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 america's 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

600-acre 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: you're one of the most successful, highest-paid 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 i'm... frankly, i'm glad we didn't have this talk when i was considering doing this. well, why not? because it was exciting, and it was potentially something great. and why wouldn't you want to be part of something like that?

>> kroft: it turned out to be a very good decision. the true-crime psychodrama about wealth, patriotism, class, manipulation, and murder has already won acclaim at film festivals around the world. and so has carell's 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 didn't want anyone obvious to play dupont. he was looking for someone benign and non-threatening who had never shot anyone in a movie before. when carell's 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 you're 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 actor-y sort of way, but i think inadvertently, we all sort of did. >> kroft: some of it had to do with carell's 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 didn't feel like they were around steve. they were around this other person. >> kroft: that must've been pretty intense. >> carell: it was intense. the whole thing was intense. >> kroft: did you enjoy this? >> carell: i did. it wasn't 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 middle-class 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. that's 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, i'm going on about myself. what do you do? >> oh, i'm 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 re-emergence of fascism in europe? >> oui. >> no. >> oui!

>> carell: that was a terrifying show to do, at first. >> kroft: why? >> carell: you can't really describe it, professionally. because you're not really... you're sort of an actor, but not really. you're definitely improvising. you're 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 you're 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? i'm just kidding! no, i don't 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 co-written with producer judd apatow based on a sketch he'd 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 didn't 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. you're a virgin. >> you guys are hilarious. >> kroft: "the 40-year-old virgin" would gross more than $100 million, and over the course of one weekend, change carell's life. his popularity propelled "the office" to a seven-year 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 doesn't 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 don't get that sense from you. >> carell: i hate it. it's embarrassing. >> kroft: why? >> carell: i just have never liked it. and it sounds like i'm being precious when i say that because i always did plays and i was always on stage. but that was different, because it wasn't me. but just as myself, yeah, i don't crave it. i don't know. i just don't... it makes me uncomfortable. >> kroft: when he's 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, it's neat. i mean, it's a gathering place. and that's... that was the draw for me, a place that people can come and hang out, and there aren't that many places like that anymore. >> kroft: carell's sister-in-law 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. let's go."

>> kroft: it's beautiful. i can see why she would want her name on it. >> carell: you're not taking it, you buy that. ( laughter ) >> kroft: when the cameras aren't 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, don't 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 husband's 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 he's not really a comedian, he's... he's not that funny in real life, that he's not a good conversationalist, that he's very socially awkward. is that true? >> nancy carell: what an attractive portrait you paint of yourself.

( laughter ) yeah, he's a real dud. no. no, of course not. no, he... he's very funny. he just doesn't try as hard, he doesn't feel the need to entertain people on a, you know, 24-hour 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 you'd 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 i'm in an improv sketch? >> steve carell: oh, it's what our kids deal with every day. >> nancy carell: no. i had every faith in your success. i knew he'd be successful. but i think we thought he'd be successful in the don knotts kind of way. ( laughter ) seriously, though. but, like, you know, barney fife was an... i mean, that's an incredible character on a tv show. and that's... that was my dream for you. >> steve carell: thank you. >> nancy carell: you're welcome.

>> steve kroft talks about steve carell's transition from comic actor to movie villain. go to 60minutesovertime.com. sponsored by lyrica.

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