There are only so many clever ways for a real-life actor to promote an animated movie character because, with all due respect to the trials of voice-work, most of the real heavy lifting is done by the animation crew. But this week Steve Carell raised the bar quite a bit for his fellow tongue-lending thesps by appearing on "Ellen" as a rather convincing human variation of his "Despicable Me 2" cartoon counterpart Gru.

Taking a leaf from the Will Ferrell and Tina Fey a la "Megamind" TV promos playbook, the funnyman stayed in character during his interview, rattling on about his extreme passion for Starbucks coffee and ultimate, life-long desire to shimmy through the audience.

As with "Despicable Me," this Gru ultimately got his shot at shakin' his tiny hiney on-screen during his "Ellen" chat, and Carell did a pretty nice job of replicating some of the character's signature moves.

Let's compare shall we?

Consider Gru breakin' it down, animated-style in "Despicable Me" ...

... versus what Steve Carell threw down as the big guy.

Pretty on point, no?

"Despicable Me 2," which also features Kristen Wiig, Russell Brand, Ken Jeong, Miranda Cosgrove, Steve Coogan and Benjamin Bratt, hits theaters on July 3.