To say that Jason Segel was in his element while providing a lead voice for the 3D animated family film Despicable Me is, he admits, something of an understatement. “Animation and puppetry and kids stuff with a little edge has always been right in my wheelhouse, so this was a treat,” he says with glee.

In the film Segel lends his voice to evil mastermind Vector, the even-more-evil rival of the nasty Gru (voiced by Segel’s comedy pal Steve Carell). Vector is a short, nerdy, bespectacled, tracksuit-wearing bad guy whose mastery of technology draws immediate parodic comparisons with Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates.

Any resemblance is purely coincidental, as it turns out. “I’ve been asked that before! He looks more like Bill Gates than I intended!” Segel laughs. As for the snivelling voice he developed for Vector, inspiration was close at hand and required no deep digging into the shady side of his psyche.

“Actually, it was really easy. I just figured this guy was super, super insecure and while he is really short and nerdy I’ve been six-four since I was 12.” (Six-four is unmetricated American that translates into English as 193 centimetres). “I was, like, six-four and 100 pounds (45.36kg) for a couple of years, just this weird, gangly kid who was like ET trying to figure out how his limbs worked. So that’s what I drew on, the insecurity of my childhood. I’m, like, the least masculine man of all time. I happen to be gigantic, but I’m pretty soft.”

The film has proved a huge hit, having taken more than $330 million worldwide, outdoing other 3D epics such as Monsters vs Aliens, How to Train Your Dragon, Ice Age 3 and Clash of the Titans. And it’s the latest feather in Segel’s increasingly weighty cap. As well as being a regular on the popular sitcom How I Met Your Mother Segel, 30, starred in the hit bromance I Love You, Man and is best known for writing and starring in the neo-classic chick flick for guys Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

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In the 3-D animated film “Despicable Me,” Jason Segel voices the character of Vector, who is in a fierce battle with a character named Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) to become the greatest villain in the world. The two rivals try to outdo each other to the point that the safety of the world may be at stake.

Segel discussed his experience making the film at a “Despicable Me” press conference in Los Angeles. Segel also talked about what the future may hold for his character in the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother.”

Can you tell us what it’s like to play such a delicious villain?
I was given a sketch very early, and I have a bit of a background in puppetry. So coming up with a voice to match this sketch I was given was my real inspiration. I had a few months to come up with a voice, and I came up with a few and I went in and they helped me choose. These guys are such geniuses. The one they ended up choosing was perfect.

Obviously, you look nothing like your character, but did you see any mannerisms that they picked up from you?
I’m going to answer that question two-fold. One, I was very excited, the whole thing that drew me to doing an animated film is that you’re freed from the physical limitations of your physical body. All of a sudden you get to be something that has nothing to do with the fact that I’m a 6′ 4″, kind of lumbering dude. And that was really exciting; puppetry is very similar. And then this guy is based almost wholly on insecurity. He just wants to prove to his dad that he’s worthy, in this case the most evil person alive.

So I kind of drew from there. It was very freeing. I think for all of the cast, you’ll probably notice, that nobody is doing their voice. Steve, myself, Russell [Brand], Julie [Andrews] — no one is talking like they normally talk and it’s because all of a sudden you’re freed from the physical limitations of how you look, which is amazing.

Vector kind of looks like Bill Gates …
He does a bit like Bill Gates, yeah!

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In Despicable Me, Jason Segel voices a character desperately seeking his father’s approval. In real life, he has that and more.

“I have the most supportive parents in the world,” Segel says, trying to stretch out on a West Hollywood hotel room sofa that’s a little too small for his 6-foot-4 frame.

“But I can relate to wanting approval. My father is a lawyer, and I was on that path. I come from a family of lawyers, doctors and money managers. But they want me to be happy,” he says. “The way I got started was so unique. I got seen in a high school play. My parents knew that opportunity doesn’t necessarily ring twice and that I should go after it.”

Thirteen years ago, Segel was a college-bound basketball player. Today at age 30, he is one of Hollywood’s busiest young talents. When he’s not playing the lovable Marshall Eriksen in the popular CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, he’s working on films. But becoming an actor was never part of Segel’s plan.

It all started in his 90-minute art history class at school in Los Angeles. “The class was right next to the drama department, so it was purely geographical that this started. I picked plays off the bookshelf and read them during the lectures.”

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Jason Segel is on a hit TV show (“How I Met Your Mother”) and has a host of movies in various stages of completion – including the new “Despicable Me” – but he recently found the time to appear at a San Francisco comedy event, providing dramatic readings from pop-star autobiographies.

“I filled in for a friend and it ended up being a blast,” he says of his first standup-esque experience. “I did the Jonas Brothers and I think it was David Cassidy – it was one of the Partridges – and Tommy Lee.” Was it difficult to keep the Jonas and Lee memoirs separated in his mind? “Absolutely, they have very similar lifestyles.”

He takes a moment to reflect on the most important life lesson he picked up: “Don’t write an autobiography when you’re still in your 20s.”

Worked with Apatow
A longtime member of the Apatow stable, Segel is known to film audiences for some risque fare. But of his projects in the wings, three are aimed at families.

“I’ve always been drawn to that tone,” he says. “The Tim Burton movies, growing up, were a real inspiration to me. But yeah, between ‘Despicable Me’ and (‘The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made’) and ‘Gulliver’s Travels,’ I’m gonna be a PG guy for the moment, it looks like. But I’ve got an R-rated comedy around the corner.”

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He’s No Dummy
He’s graduated from high school sitcoms to the Hollywood A-list and a role as a 3-D supervillain in ‘Despicable Me,’ but the resolutely down-to-earth Jason Segel remains both freak and geek. He talks to Alex Pappademas about nude scenes, marriage, and Muppets. (Mostly Muppets, actually)
By Alex Pappademas, Photographs by Martin Schoeller
July 2010

One night not long ago, Jason Segel walked out of a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles and saw a kid on the sidewalk, maybe 17, struggling to light what appeared to be a half-smoked cigarette. Segel, a smoker himself and a friend to fiends in need—”There’s not too many of us left,” he points out—proffered a fresh one from his own pack. The kid looked up, face full of withering 17-year-old pity, and said, “This is a joint, sir.”

The sir—that was the worst part, Segel says, laughing about it a few weeks later while seated outside the same restaurant. You can build a career playing, and writing about, guys blithely enjoying protracted young-dudehoods, clinging to their puppets (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), their “jerk-off station”-equipped man-caves (I Love You, Man), or their bongs (Knocked Up), but eventually you turn 30, teenage potheads look at you like you’re as old as Jay Leno, and your carefully calibrated real-life perma-dudehood falls victim to the working week.

“I miss smoking a ton of pot,” Segel says, genuinely wistful. “I can’t do it anymore. I’ve got too much work.” There’s his role as TV’s most realistic contentedly hitched goofball on How I Met Your Mother, which is a five-days-a-week gig. The Gulliver’s Travels movie he’s finishing up with Jack Black. The romantic comedy he just wrapped with Cameron Diaz and the one he’s doing with the brothers Duplass, of mumblecore microfame. And the script he’s fine-tuning for a new and, he hopes, franchise-rebooting Muppet movie.

When this interview is over, he’s got to go brainstorm a list of celebrities to tap for cameos in that last project—but he plans to do that at a bar, perhaps before or after taking a nap. Not everything has changed: We meet up at Meltdown Comics—Despicable Me, the 3-D CGI movie Segel is promoting, is sort of an evil version of The Incredibles, with Segel and Steve Carell voicing rival supervillains—but Segel presented at the Writers Guild Awards last night, and when he arrives, comedy-business-cazh in a roomy plaid western shirt and jeans, he’s hurting from a long night of after-afterpartying, so we repair to the place across the street to talk in a more hangover-friendly context. Egg sandwiches on focaccia and a bottle of what turns out to be nerve-toxin-grade hot sauce are procured; Segel lights up his first smoke and starts coming back to life.

1. MUPPETS ARE NEVER SAD
So—who’s the most famous person who goes to the WGA awards?
You know who was there last night, was Morgan Freeman. Full of gravitas, as usual. All the presenters were sort of making fun of how lame the Writers Guild Awards are, and then Morgan Freeman got up there, like [solemn Morgan Freeman voice] “Once…in a lifetime…a man writes a script…” And everyone, all of a sudden, became so serious. [laughs]

Promotion is in full swing for “Get Him To The Greek“, which is based upon the character of Aldous Snow from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Jason has had some involvement in the film as a co-producer, but the best news coming out of the promotion is that Jason has written at least three songs for the film. He has written one song for the character of Jackie Q, and two for Russell Brand’s Aldous Snow, titled “Going Up” and “Bangers, Beans and Mash”. The latter has been released onto the internet for all to hear and I have to say it’s pretty damn awesome! Three reasons to buy the soundtrack… Listen below.

Mila Kunis who starred with Jason in his breakout movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall is promoting her new film Date Night with Tina Fey and Steve Carell, and did a photoshoot with GQ. Among the things she talked about was her love for a good d–k joke, which inevitably lead onto Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Jason.

“Look, I want it on the record, okay? It’s a nice d–k. Well proportioned. Handsome. I have nothing but good things to say about Jason Segel’s penis.”

Check out the interview and photoshoot on GQ’s website

In gearing up for the release of Despicable Me later this year, some reporters were invited to view fifteen minutes of footage from the film, and they have posted reviews of the footage online, they give more information on the two main characters of Gru (Steve Carell) and Vector (Jason Segel) mostly, its a good read to find out more about the film. Check out the reviews at these two links:

Cinematical.com – Review.
Collider.com – Review and interview with producer Chris Meledandri.

Also, Get Him To The Greek, the film written by Nicholas Stoller, based upon the character Aldous Snow (played by Russell Brand) from Forgetting Sarah Marshall has just released the first trailer for movie. While Jason isn’t involved in the movie himself, he does have a writing credit in the movie for creating the character of Aldous Snow, and I have the say, the Trailer is pretty damn funny, it looks like its going to be a good comedy.