For Steve Carell, it's a big leap -- going from playing a jerk on "The Office" to a lovable romantic comedy hero in his new movie, "Dan in Real Life."

Sure, his character, Dan Burns, has his endearing foibles. He keeps smashing up his car. He is clueless about handling his daughter's romance. And the widower falls hard for Marie (Juliette Binoche) -- only to find out that she is his brother's girlfriend. But Dan is the kind of vulnerable guy the audience is rooting for to land the beautiful woman.

Unlike Michael Scott, the guy Carell usually plays week after week on the NBC hit "The Office," Dan is a likable guy. On the other hand, there's Scott. The regional manager of the Scranton office of the Dunder Mifflin paper company is a bit of a jerk -- albeit a well-meaning one. He's mostly a buffoon who makes groan-inducing comments even when he is trying to be a nice boss.

"He is someone with an emotional blind spot," Carell said. "He doesn't have a great sense of self awareness. He does not understand how other people perceive him. But I don't think he is a bad person. He doesn't try to inflict any harm. Things don't always work out the way he hoped or planned."

Things will continue not to work out in a hilariously awkward way for him and the other office drones during the fourth season of "The Office," a remake of the droll British hit comedy.

"There are some rocky roads ahead with relationships," he said. "Me and Jan. Dwight and Angela. Pam and Jim. There will be lots of ups and downs."

But in his movie role as Dan, things work out in the sweetly predictable romantic comedy way -- a big switch from his hapless, clueless role in "The Office."

"It was a refreshing palate cleanser," he said about his movie role.

He plays opposite Oscar-winning French actress Binoche, whom he meets in a bookstore before his family reunion. He almost falls over when he walks in the family house and sees her on his brother's arm. While Carell is famous for comedic roles such as "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Bruce Almighty," Binoche is known for serious dramas such as "The English Patient" and "Wuthering Heights."

"If you would have told me three years ago that Juliette would have been my love interest, I wouldn't have believed you."

During filming, "she was very self-deprecating and very funny. She is great," he said. "We hit it off."

And about that semi-steamy scene, where he is forced to go inside a shower with her because his daughter doesn't know he had snuck in the bathroom to talk to her? "We shot that the last night. We were very close by that point. It was just fun. We laughed a lot."

He also did aerobics behind Binoche, which he said was not nearly as taxing as his victorious karate fight against Dwight (Rainn Wilson) during an "Office" episode.

"And, I have to say, Juliette Binoche is much more attractive," he said.

In "Dan," Carell plays the role of a widowed newspaper advice columnist who ignores his own advice with his three daughters and cuts out intimacy in his own life. He tries to sabotage his middle daughter's passionate romance, and in one scene, she lashes out, calling him "a murderer of love."

As the father of a 6-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old boy, Carell said he saw his future while filming the movie, and it wasn't pretty. "I essentially looked into the crystal ball and saw the darkness. It is daunting."

Carell said he was also attracted to the script because of the warmth of the family, even with all the awkwardness of two brothers fighting over the same woman. "I honestly think the family in the movie is very functional. They are full of angst, but the pervasive feeling of this family is love. That definitely spoke to me because I came from a fairly functional group of people."

'The Office' in Scranton

Carell said he was going to his brother's wedding this weekend -- instead of attending a big "The Office Convention" in Scranton, the former coal town that is the fictional setting of the show that is actually filmed in Los Angeles.

The streets of Scranton are expected to be jammed with people looking for a peek of the actors who portray Jan (Melora Hardin), Angela (Angela Kinsey), Kevin (Brian Baumgartner), Oscar (Oscar Nunez), Kelly (Mindy Kaling), Creed (Creed Bratton), Phyllis (Phyllis Smith), Stanley (Leslie David Baker) and others.

"I think it is going to be fun when imagination meets reality," said Michelle Dempsey, an architect who is an organizer of the convention.

Carell is a no-show. And it's uncertain whether the other big-three characters -- Pam, Jim and Dwight -- will come.

Even without Carell's star power, Scrantonians and visitors can hear the writers talk about their inspiration for this fluorescent-lit absurdity. Conventions-goers also can compete in the Office Olympics, where they can race walk with paper boxes attached to their feet or play Dunderball. (For details, see www.theofficeconvention.com.)

Instead of presiding over long autograph lines, "The Office" actors will be out and about in the streets, doing things that real-live paper company employees might do.

"Anyone who is a fan of 'The Office,' if they want to brush against one of their favorite characters, this would be the time," Dempsey said. "Bob Vance [Robert R. Shafer, Phyllis' husband on the show] is coming, too. He walks down the street with a shirt that says 'Bob Vance from Bob Vance Refrigeration.' "