Even the horses were afraid of Steve Carell. When he walked the Pennsylvania estate where he filmed “Foxcatcher,” shrouded by the prosthetics and makeup he wore to play John E. du Pont, the troubled scion and convicted murderer, he could tell the animals were keeping their distance.

“I was hoping that would happen naturally,” Mr. Carell said, smiling with satisfaction as he recalled the experience recently. “And it did. I creeped them out. They did not like being around me.” What Mr. Carell did not expect during his time on “Foxcatcher,” the director Bennett Miller’s methodical and atmospheric account of how Mr. du Pont’s fervent support of an Olympic wrestler, Mark Schultz, degenerated into something far more sinister, was that this same camouflage he used during its creation would also affect how his human co-stars and collaborators were approaching him. “Or not approaching me,” Mr. Carell said more seriously. “Truly keeping me at a distance. Kind of inadvertently, I felt a little ostracized.”