"What I love about Lucy is that the story revolves around her being a spy and working with Gru but such a big part of it is the home and the family and Lucy being a mom.
"I love that in all of these movies that she is such an important character and the humour in the story."
Speaking about how he came up with Gru’s very distinctive accent for the franchise, Carell said, "I tried a bunch of different versions for Gru’s voice and the one I landed on was the one that made my kids laugh.
"That first session was really exploratory, I went home and said to my kids these are the six versions I have for Gru and that’s the one they all went for."
The new film also sees Will Ferrell make his Despicable Me debut as supervillain Maxime Le Mal, who is out for revenge on former classmate Gru for upstaging him at the Eight Grade talent show when they were kids.
Gru’s family, which now includes new arrival Gru Jr, are forced to go into hiding when Le Mal breaks out of prison set on revenge - and Ferrell really seems to have enjoyed the role.
In fact, Le Mal is like a slightly more unhinged version of Mugatu, the maniacal manchild fashion boss Ferrell played in the Zoolander movies.
"I like that, I like that," Ferrell says. "Yeah, I think it’s always fun to play a villain like Maxime who is slightly insecure. He’s coming up with all these plans but he’s been questioned all the time by his girlfriend.
"And he’s just so petty - his revenge on Gru goes back to him messing with him at the Eight Grade talent show years ago. it’s so funny that those are the heightened stakes that he wishes to seek revenge for."
Would Ferrell ever hold a grudge like that? "For stealing my interpretation of Karma Chameleon in school? Yes, I would."
Second to Gru’s accent, there are the actual minions themselves, who speak in a garbled Esperanto voiced by French-Indonesian film director, voice actor, and animator.
"That is the one of the most genius components of this movie series," says Carell. "Pierre does all the voices of the Minions and there is a language to it. if you can understand the language, you can understand every word they’re saying.
"Mostly you can get it in dribs and drabs but I’m sure there will be conventions of Minions speakers one day."
Despicable Me 4 is in cinemas on 12 July
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