gru is played by steve carell
Felonious Gru, or rather Gru for short, is the main protagonist in the Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2 movies. Gru's wish is to be the world's #1 villain. His plan involves stealing the moon, which would be the crime of the century. His prime rival is the young and cocky Vector, Mr. Perkins' son.
When he saw Margo and her little sisters go inside Vector's lair, Gru decided to adopt them so they could sneak into Vector's lair and take the shrink ray Vector stole from Gru who stole it from an Asian laboratory.
At first, he just wanted to send them back to the orphanage as soon as he got the shrink ray, but he began to like them after spending an afternoon with them at an amusement park.
Contents [show] History Gru came from a long lineage of Grus. Although his origin is unknown, in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres he claimed he was from Albuquerque, New Mexico. As a child he had always dreamt of going to the moon. He made a "prototype" rocket out of macaroni and an actual working prototype rocket. For most of his childhood he was neglected and ignored by his mother, and it is unknown if this is what inspired him to become a supervillain, or if the Gru family is a family of supervillains, although his mother showed no signs of being one. He has worked with Dr. Nefario, who builds gadgets and weapons for Gru, for some time and based on what Dr. Nefario said, they have been planning the moon heist for a long time.
Plot Despicable Me When he learns of the theft of the Pyramids of Giza through the news, his pride is badly wounded, and he assembles his minions in his underground lair. he recalls their accomplishments (theft of the Times Square jumbotron, and the miniature Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower from Las Vegas). He then reveals his next big scheme, to steal the moon, apparently the biggest heist in world history. He then meets Margo, Edith and Agnes at his doorstep trying to sell him cookies. He sends them away by pretending that he wasn't at home and that his voice was being played on a recorder.
Meanwhile, he meets the young villain Vector in the Bank of Evil while waiting for his audience with Mr. Perkins, the bank's owner. Vector annoys him by explaining his name to him and showing off his piranha gun. When Gru finally gets to face Mr. Perkins, he asks for funding for him to build the rocket necessary for his plan to steal the moon, but Mr. Perkins refuses to give him a loan unless he presents the shrink ray, and finds out from him that it was Vector who stole the Pyramids of Giza. As Gru leaves the bank, he freezes Vector's head with his freeze ray.
During a testing of the shrink ray in a facility in East Asia, Gru steals it and flies off on his ship. However during mid-flight, Vector steals the shrink ray from him. Gru tries to shoot him down, first with guns, then with missiles, all of which miss. Vector then blasts Gru's ship with the shrink ray as payback for freezing his head, causing him and the minions on board to ride upon it.
Gru attempts to steal the shrink ray from Vector's lair only to be thwarted by its defensive systems, and Vector's pet shark. He sees the girls try to sell Vector cookies, and he lets them in. Gru plans of using the girls to steal the shrink ray and contacts Dr. Nefario and tells him to build Cookie Robots for the theft. Gru goes to Miss Hattie's Home for Girls, the orphanage Margo, Edith and Agnes are from, as a dentist and adopts them, and initially, treats them coldly, like pets.
The following day, The girls convince Gru to drive them to dance class before going to Vector's lair to deliver the large quantities of cookies that Vector ordered. Meanwhile, the cookie robots are activated and break into Vector's vault, and Gru enters through the opening made on one side of the wall and grabs the shrink ray, but they are sealed in by the cookie robots. They escape through some air vents and out the main entrance (without Vector noticing) and return to Gru's house.
On the way, they stop by an amusement park called Super Silly Fun Land, which Gru sees as a chance to abandon the girls. After being forced to ride the roller coaster with them and helping Agnes win a unicorn stuffed toy, he ends up having fun with Margo, Edith and Agnes.
At his home, he fine-tunes his plan to Mr. Perkins (via either videophone, webcam or some high tech transmission). But he is interrupted by the girls during his presentation. Perkins surprises him by again refusing him the loan—claiming that while he doesn't have a problem with the plan, he doesn't want Gru to do it and he still wants a younger villain to do it. This leads Gru into a flashback of his childhood, where we see he's wanted to go to the moon ever since he was a child. He tried to impress his mother with models (and an actual working model) and make her proud of him, but she never seemed to care about anything he did—thus fueling his desire. Though Gru is ready to abandon his plan due to lack of funds, the girls and the minions take up a collection to keep it going.
While the rocket is being built, Gru has fun with the girls, having tea parties with them, allowing them to have a slumber party, telling them a bedtime story and cooking them various shaped pancakes. Dr. Nefario soon begins to see the girls as a distraction to Gru, since the moon heist and an important ballet recital the girls are in fall on the same day, and Gru wants to move the day of the heist, so he contacts Miss Hattie, who arrives to take the girls back to the orphanage, after he claims Gru wanted to give them back. Both Gru and the girls are heartbroken. Eventually the day of the heist comes, and with a broken heart, Gru boards the rocket and flies off to the moon, but not before one of the minions puts the ticket Agnes gave him into his space suit's pocket.
Gru shrinks the moon and pockets it, but returns to Earth once he sees the ticket Agnes gave him and realizes he has time to catch the recital. However, it has ended by the time he arrives. On the seat that the girls reserved for him, he finds a note from Vector which is in a note from the girls as a reserved seat for Gru, who has kidnapped the girls, telling him to bring the moon. After forcing Gru to hand over the moon, Vector goes back on the deal and keeps the girls as his captives. This enrages Gru, who storms Vector's lair, his defenses proving useless. Vector then leaves his lair in an escape pod with the girls inside. Gru chases after them, climbing the disguised Pyramid attempting to hitchhike on the exterior of the ship, and nearly falls to his death, but is rescued by Dr. Nefario in the ship that Vector shrank previously. Nefario reveals that the effects of the shrink ray are not permanent and the effect wears off at a rate proportional to its original mass (which he calls the "Nefario Principle"). As Gru gives chase to Vector, the effects of the shrink ray on the Moon begin to wear off, causing the Moon to grow and smash open the glass bubble holding the girls. Gru rescues them by securing Vector's ship using a rope with a grappling hook and tells them to jump and that he will catch them. Edith and Agnes jump, and while Margo is about to jump, Vector catches her, but the (rapidly-expanding) Moon wrecks Vector's controls, causing his ship to hyperjump and carry the moon back into orbit, Margo falls off and Gru jumps in to catch her, and the minions join hands to form a lifeline, saving Gru and Margo.
Gru readopts the girls and they settle down to live a happy life as a family. He tells them a bedtime story about a unicorn whose life was changed when he met three little kittens (his own life story). Vector is stranded on the Moon with a minion that drank a sample of an anti-gravity potion and floated out of the lab after Nefario forgot to close the skylight. The girls give a special recital for the minions, Gru, and his mother, who after years of neglecting her son, finally tells him she is proud of him. The music changes from Swan Lake to disco, and everyone present rushes onstage to dance (even Vector dances while he is still stranded on the moon).
Despicable Me 2 In the sequel, Despicable Me 2, Gru has retired from villainy, preferring to concentrate on his new venture of producing bottled jellies and the responsibilities of being a father to his three adopted girls, Margo, Agnes and Edith.
Gru is approached by Lucy Wilde, an AVL agent who forcibly abducts Gru after stunning him unconscious with her lipstick taser. Two of Gru's minions who try to thwart her plans are captured also. They travel to AVL's underwater headquarters where Gru meets the league's director, Silas Ramsbottom. He asks Gru to assist them in their efforts to track down the perpetrator who stole a secret laboratory near the Arctic Circle, which contains a mutating chemical compound, PX-41, which could transform living things into indestructible killing machines, but Gru refuses.
Before he leaves, Lucy admits she was impressed by his work as a villain and gives her business card to Gru, urging him to contact her if he changes his mind. Upon return to his lab, Gru realises that his minion-run production line had churned out bottles of awful-tasting jellies. Also, his research scientist, Dr. Nefario confesses to Gru that he misses being "evil" and has been offered employment elsewhere. After giving Dr. Nefario a 21 fart-gun send-off with the minions, Gru contacts Lucy and takes on the task of recovering the stolen mutagen.
Traces of chemical scent given off by the mutagen narrow the search to the confines of The Paradise Shopping Mall. Gru works undercover as the owner of a cupcake shop in that mall with Lucy being assigned as his partner. He suspects one of the owners of a restaurant in the mall, named Eduardo, is an old super-villain called El Macho, who supposedly died after body-strapping TNT and riding a shark into an active volcano that resulted in his fiery demise.
While the team investigates wig merchant Floyd Eagle-san, Margo begins to develop a crush on Eduardo's son, Antonio, to Gru's frustration. The whole family is invited to Eduardo's Cinco de Mayo party at his mansion where Gru's protectiveness of his daughter leads him to make baseless wild accusations about Eduardo as El Macho and his son, which are scoffed at.
Later that day, a determined matchmaking neighbour, Jillian, sets a reluctant Gru up on a date with her rude and superficial friend Shannon. During the date, Shannon discovers Gru's wig and threatens to humiliate him, but Lucy saves him from embarrassment by shooting her with a tranquilizing dart. They take Shannon home, and Gru realizes he is in love with Lucy. When he arrives at the mall the next day, the Anti-Villain League arrest Floyd Eagle-san, who protests vehemently that he was framed, after the AVL team uncovers the empty mutagen jar in his shop. Silas tells Gru that the case is now closed and that Lucy will be assigned to Australia for work.
Gru, heartbroken from the situation, tells Agnes that she was right that he loves her. However, Gru is unable to muster the courage to ask Lucy out before she leaves. The family then goes to Eduardo's party. Gru follows Eduardo and discovers that he was correct about Eduardo being the presumed-dead super-villain El Macho. Gru also discovers that Dr. Nefario has been working for Eduardo and that the duo has been capturing and mutating some of Gru's minions into the purple-furred monsters using the stolen mutagen serum. Eduardo offers Gru a chance to conquer the world, but Gru makes unconvincing excuses and hastily leaves with the girls. Margo has also broken up with Antonio as he became interested in another girl. For breaking her heart, Gru encases Antonio in a block of ice with his freeze-ray.
Dr. Nefario calls Gru to tell him that Lucy had arrived at Eduardo's party to find him, and has been captured by Eduardo. Gru disguises two of his minions in purple paint to escort his "captured" self into Eduardo's compound in a rescue attempt. Gru manages to restore the minions who were under El Macho's control using the awful-tasting jam infused with the antidote which Dr. Nefario made. Gru goes and defeat El Macho, but some of the purple Minions are about to attack Gru, but they were turned back to normal. When Gru finds El Macho, he explains to him that he will launch the rocket where Lucy is on to the same volcano where he faked his death, but this time it will be for real. When El Macho was about to press the button, a Minion took it away from him. El Macho tells Gru that together, they would had conquered the world, and that he will die. El Macho turns into a purple monster by drinking the serum and tries to kill Gru. Later now, Gru electricutes El Macho with Lucy's lipstick tazzer and by the fart gun. After El Macho collapses to the ground, Gru tries to untie Lucy who is strapped onto a TNT-loaded shark rocket. While attempting to do so, Eduardo's pet chicken triggers the launch remote, sending the pair flying towards the lava-spewing volcano where El Macho faked his death. While on the rocket, Lucy accepts Gru's date invitation before the pair dives into the safety of the ocean, just seconds before the rocket explodes. One hundred and forty-seven dates later, the two are married and the girls finally have a mother. The film ends when a purple minion appears and surprises the family.
Personality At first, Gru was a sneaky and somewhat cold-hearted man, who was determined to become the greatest villain in the world. At first he showed a dislike of children being easily irritated by Agnes, Edith and Margo. He was selfish and in the beginning he only adopted Agnes, Edith and Margo so that he could get a shrink ray which he intended to use to shrink the moon so that he could steal it. He was also rather indifferent to their needs and welfare; when Edith was trapped inside an iron maiden and briefly presumed dead, he indifferently said that his plan could work with two children.
Gru was also rather cruel and even sadistic at first and enjoyed using his Freeze Ray, which was his signature weapon often freezing people just for the sake of it. Near the beginning of the movie he made a balloon animal for a boy who'd dropped his ice cream and then popped the balloon just for fun. When Vector kidnapped his adopted daughters he furiously told him that he was in for a world of pain. However this was not a sign of his sadism; instead it was a sign of how much he cared for the three girls.
Despite these traits, Gru was shown to be good friends with Dr Nefario and also treated his minions quite well interacting with them and calling each one of them by name instead of just treating them like slaves. However he also said that he had no intention of giving his minions a raise. He had a somewhat strained relationship with his mother who hadn't been a particularly good parent but he was determined to make her proud.
As time went on, Gru started to enjoy spending time with his three adopted daughters and in the end he grew to genuinely love them, putting aside his dream of stealing the moon and risking his life to rescue them from Vector. Dr Nefario disapproved of the fact that Gru's warmer side was starting to reveal itself and sent the girls back to the orphanage. Though Gru didn't attempt to stop Miss Hattie from taking them he was clearly upset about them leaving and later said that giving them up was the worst mistake he'd ever made. He also did his best to get to their dance performance after stealing the moon and was upset when he discovered he was too late. Gru also had a tendency to say "lightbulb" whenever he had an idea. He spoke in an unusual accent (probably east European) which was described as 'a mix of Ricardo Montalban and Bela Lugosi'. When asked about his accent by Ellen DeGeneres he said he was from Albuquerque, New Mexico and asked Ellen not to push this topic any further.
Appearance and Abilities Gru is a tall, bald man with blue eyes; a long nose and broad, powerful physique; (unlike Vector) and dress in a light grey sweater underneath a black collared coat along with a striped scarf, black trousers, and shoes. He is very strong and athletic, being capable of dodging and leaping off several heat-seeking missiles, backhanding Vector's shark with a single punch (without even looking at it), and smashing his fist into Vector's monitor, easily cracking the screen without doing any damage to his hand.
Apart from his remarkable agility and strength, Gru is also considerably intelligent. For example, as a child he built a real rocket. However since becoming a supervillain he seems to let Dr Nefario handle most of the mechanical work though he was seen helping Nefario from time to time. Gru was also capable of forming clever plans such as his plan to steal the shrink ray from Vector. He also has demonstrated an amazing ability to adapt and improvise effectively on the fly when the a plan takes some unexpected twists and turns.
During his interview with Miss Hattie when he first adopted the girls, his date of birth is listed as "09.28.1960". Based on the real-world release dates of both movies, this would put his age at the early 50s as of Despicable Me 2.
Gru is also a good dancer as he always enjoys dances through crowds of minions or real people. On The Ellen DeGeneres Show he showed he could do many kinds of dances but Ellen was unable to guess the last one before time ran out (Irish Jig).
Achievements
When he saw Margo and her little sisters go inside Vector's lair, Gru decided to adopt them so they could sneak into Vector's lair and take the shrink ray Vector stole from Gru who stole it from an Asian laboratory.
At first, he just wanted to send them back to the orphanage as soon as he got the shrink ray, but he began to like them after spending an afternoon with them at an amusement park.
Contents [show] History Gru came from a long lineage of Grus. Although his origin is unknown, in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres he claimed he was from Albuquerque, New Mexico. As a child he had always dreamt of going to the moon. He made a "prototype" rocket out of macaroni and an actual working prototype rocket. For most of his childhood he was neglected and ignored by his mother, and it is unknown if this is what inspired him to become a supervillain, or if the Gru family is a family of supervillains, although his mother showed no signs of being one. He has worked with Dr. Nefario, who builds gadgets and weapons for Gru, for some time and based on what Dr. Nefario said, they have been planning the moon heist for a long time.
Plot Despicable Me When he learns of the theft of the Pyramids of Giza through the news, his pride is badly wounded, and he assembles his minions in his underground lair. he recalls their accomplishments (theft of the Times Square jumbotron, and the miniature Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower from Las Vegas). He then reveals his next big scheme, to steal the moon, apparently the biggest heist in world history. He then meets Margo, Edith and Agnes at his doorstep trying to sell him cookies. He sends them away by pretending that he wasn't at home and that his voice was being played on a recorder.
Meanwhile, he meets the young villain Vector in the Bank of Evil while waiting for his audience with Mr. Perkins, the bank's owner. Vector annoys him by explaining his name to him and showing off his piranha gun. When Gru finally gets to face Mr. Perkins, he asks for funding for him to build the rocket necessary for his plan to steal the moon, but Mr. Perkins refuses to give him a loan unless he presents the shrink ray, and finds out from him that it was Vector who stole the Pyramids of Giza. As Gru leaves the bank, he freezes Vector's head with his freeze ray.
During a testing of the shrink ray in a facility in East Asia, Gru steals it and flies off on his ship. However during mid-flight, Vector steals the shrink ray from him. Gru tries to shoot him down, first with guns, then with missiles, all of which miss. Vector then blasts Gru's ship with the shrink ray as payback for freezing his head, causing him and the minions on board to ride upon it.
Gru attempts to steal the shrink ray from Vector's lair only to be thwarted by its defensive systems, and Vector's pet shark. He sees the girls try to sell Vector cookies, and he lets them in. Gru plans of using the girls to steal the shrink ray and contacts Dr. Nefario and tells him to build Cookie Robots for the theft. Gru goes to Miss Hattie's Home for Girls, the orphanage Margo, Edith and Agnes are from, as a dentist and adopts them, and initially, treats them coldly, like pets.
The following day, The girls convince Gru to drive them to dance class before going to Vector's lair to deliver the large quantities of cookies that Vector ordered. Meanwhile, the cookie robots are activated and break into Vector's vault, and Gru enters through the opening made on one side of the wall and grabs the shrink ray, but they are sealed in by the cookie robots. They escape through some air vents and out the main entrance (without Vector noticing) and return to Gru's house.
On the way, they stop by an amusement park called Super Silly Fun Land, which Gru sees as a chance to abandon the girls. After being forced to ride the roller coaster with them and helping Agnes win a unicorn stuffed toy, he ends up having fun with Margo, Edith and Agnes.
At his home, he fine-tunes his plan to Mr. Perkins (via either videophone, webcam or some high tech transmission). But he is interrupted by the girls during his presentation. Perkins surprises him by again refusing him the loan—claiming that while he doesn't have a problem with the plan, he doesn't want Gru to do it and he still wants a younger villain to do it. This leads Gru into a flashback of his childhood, where we see he's wanted to go to the moon ever since he was a child. He tried to impress his mother with models (and an actual working model) and make her proud of him, but she never seemed to care about anything he did—thus fueling his desire. Though Gru is ready to abandon his plan due to lack of funds, the girls and the minions take up a collection to keep it going.
While the rocket is being built, Gru has fun with the girls, having tea parties with them, allowing them to have a slumber party, telling them a bedtime story and cooking them various shaped pancakes. Dr. Nefario soon begins to see the girls as a distraction to Gru, since the moon heist and an important ballet recital the girls are in fall on the same day, and Gru wants to move the day of the heist, so he contacts Miss Hattie, who arrives to take the girls back to the orphanage, after he claims Gru wanted to give them back. Both Gru and the girls are heartbroken. Eventually the day of the heist comes, and with a broken heart, Gru boards the rocket and flies off to the moon, but not before one of the minions puts the ticket Agnes gave him into his space suit's pocket.
Gru shrinks the moon and pockets it, but returns to Earth once he sees the ticket Agnes gave him and realizes he has time to catch the recital. However, it has ended by the time he arrives. On the seat that the girls reserved for him, he finds a note from Vector which is in a note from the girls as a reserved seat for Gru, who has kidnapped the girls, telling him to bring the moon. After forcing Gru to hand over the moon, Vector goes back on the deal and keeps the girls as his captives. This enrages Gru, who storms Vector's lair, his defenses proving useless. Vector then leaves his lair in an escape pod with the girls inside. Gru chases after them, climbing the disguised Pyramid attempting to hitchhike on the exterior of the ship, and nearly falls to his death, but is rescued by Dr. Nefario in the ship that Vector shrank previously. Nefario reveals that the effects of the shrink ray are not permanent and the effect wears off at a rate proportional to its original mass (which he calls the "Nefario Principle"). As Gru gives chase to Vector, the effects of the shrink ray on the Moon begin to wear off, causing the Moon to grow and smash open the glass bubble holding the girls. Gru rescues them by securing Vector's ship using a rope with a grappling hook and tells them to jump and that he will catch them. Edith and Agnes jump, and while Margo is about to jump, Vector catches her, but the (rapidly-expanding) Moon wrecks Vector's controls, causing his ship to hyperjump and carry the moon back into orbit, Margo falls off and Gru jumps in to catch her, and the minions join hands to form a lifeline, saving Gru and Margo.
Gru readopts the girls and they settle down to live a happy life as a family. He tells them a bedtime story about a unicorn whose life was changed when he met three little kittens (his own life story). Vector is stranded on the Moon with a minion that drank a sample of an anti-gravity potion and floated out of the lab after Nefario forgot to close the skylight. The girls give a special recital for the minions, Gru, and his mother, who after years of neglecting her son, finally tells him she is proud of him. The music changes from Swan Lake to disco, and everyone present rushes onstage to dance (even Vector dances while he is still stranded on the moon).
Despicable Me 2 In the sequel, Despicable Me 2, Gru has retired from villainy, preferring to concentrate on his new venture of producing bottled jellies and the responsibilities of being a father to his three adopted girls, Margo, Agnes and Edith.
Gru is approached by Lucy Wilde, an AVL agent who forcibly abducts Gru after stunning him unconscious with her lipstick taser. Two of Gru's minions who try to thwart her plans are captured also. They travel to AVL's underwater headquarters where Gru meets the league's director, Silas Ramsbottom. He asks Gru to assist them in their efforts to track down the perpetrator who stole a secret laboratory near the Arctic Circle, which contains a mutating chemical compound, PX-41, which could transform living things into indestructible killing machines, but Gru refuses.
Before he leaves, Lucy admits she was impressed by his work as a villain and gives her business card to Gru, urging him to contact her if he changes his mind. Upon return to his lab, Gru realises that his minion-run production line had churned out bottles of awful-tasting jellies. Also, his research scientist, Dr. Nefario confesses to Gru that he misses being "evil" and has been offered employment elsewhere. After giving Dr. Nefario a 21 fart-gun send-off with the minions, Gru contacts Lucy and takes on the task of recovering the stolen mutagen.
Traces of chemical scent given off by the mutagen narrow the search to the confines of The Paradise Shopping Mall. Gru works undercover as the owner of a cupcake shop in that mall with Lucy being assigned as his partner. He suspects one of the owners of a restaurant in the mall, named Eduardo, is an old super-villain called El Macho, who supposedly died after body-strapping TNT and riding a shark into an active volcano that resulted in his fiery demise.
While the team investigates wig merchant Floyd Eagle-san, Margo begins to develop a crush on Eduardo's son, Antonio, to Gru's frustration. The whole family is invited to Eduardo's Cinco de Mayo party at his mansion where Gru's protectiveness of his daughter leads him to make baseless wild accusations about Eduardo as El Macho and his son, which are scoffed at.
Later that day, a determined matchmaking neighbour, Jillian, sets a reluctant Gru up on a date with her rude and superficial friend Shannon. During the date, Shannon discovers Gru's wig and threatens to humiliate him, but Lucy saves him from embarrassment by shooting her with a tranquilizing dart. They take Shannon home, and Gru realizes he is in love with Lucy. When he arrives at the mall the next day, the Anti-Villain League arrest Floyd Eagle-san, who protests vehemently that he was framed, after the AVL team uncovers the empty mutagen jar in his shop. Silas tells Gru that the case is now closed and that Lucy will be assigned to Australia for work.
Gru, heartbroken from the situation, tells Agnes that she was right that he loves her. However, Gru is unable to muster the courage to ask Lucy out before she leaves. The family then goes to Eduardo's party. Gru follows Eduardo and discovers that he was correct about Eduardo being the presumed-dead super-villain El Macho. Gru also discovers that Dr. Nefario has been working for Eduardo and that the duo has been capturing and mutating some of Gru's minions into the purple-furred monsters using the stolen mutagen serum. Eduardo offers Gru a chance to conquer the world, but Gru makes unconvincing excuses and hastily leaves with the girls. Margo has also broken up with Antonio as he became interested in another girl. For breaking her heart, Gru encases Antonio in a block of ice with his freeze-ray.
Dr. Nefario calls Gru to tell him that Lucy had arrived at Eduardo's party to find him, and has been captured by Eduardo. Gru disguises two of his minions in purple paint to escort his "captured" self into Eduardo's compound in a rescue attempt. Gru manages to restore the minions who were under El Macho's control using the awful-tasting jam infused with the antidote which Dr. Nefario made. Gru goes and defeat El Macho, but some of the purple Minions are about to attack Gru, but they were turned back to normal. When Gru finds El Macho, he explains to him that he will launch the rocket where Lucy is on to the same volcano where he faked his death, but this time it will be for real. When El Macho was about to press the button, a Minion took it away from him. El Macho tells Gru that together, they would had conquered the world, and that he will die. El Macho turns into a purple monster by drinking the serum and tries to kill Gru. Later now, Gru electricutes El Macho with Lucy's lipstick tazzer and by the fart gun. After El Macho collapses to the ground, Gru tries to untie Lucy who is strapped onto a TNT-loaded shark rocket. While attempting to do so, Eduardo's pet chicken triggers the launch remote, sending the pair flying towards the lava-spewing volcano where El Macho faked his death. While on the rocket, Lucy accepts Gru's date invitation before the pair dives into the safety of the ocean, just seconds before the rocket explodes. One hundred and forty-seven dates later, the two are married and the girls finally have a mother. The film ends when a purple minion appears and surprises the family.
Personality At first, Gru was a sneaky and somewhat cold-hearted man, who was determined to become the greatest villain in the world. At first he showed a dislike of children being easily irritated by Agnes, Edith and Margo. He was selfish and in the beginning he only adopted Agnes, Edith and Margo so that he could get a shrink ray which he intended to use to shrink the moon so that he could steal it. He was also rather indifferent to their needs and welfare; when Edith was trapped inside an iron maiden and briefly presumed dead, he indifferently said that his plan could work with two children.
Gru was also rather cruel and even sadistic at first and enjoyed using his Freeze Ray, which was his signature weapon often freezing people just for the sake of it. Near the beginning of the movie he made a balloon animal for a boy who'd dropped his ice cream and then popped the balloon just for fun. When Vector kidnapped his adopted daughters he furiously told him that he was in for a world of pain. However this was not a sign of his sadism; instead it was a sign of how much he cared for the three girls.
Despite these traits, Gru was shown to be good friends with Dr Nefario and also treated his minions quite well interacting with them and calling each one of them by name instead of just treating them like slaves. However he also said that he had no intention of giving his minions a raise. He had a somewhat strained relationship with his mother who hadn't been a particularly good parent but he was determined to make her proud.
As time went on, Gru started to enjoy spending time with his three adopted daughters and in the end he grew to genuinely love them, putting aside his dream of stealing the moon and risking his life to rescue them from Vector. Dr Nefario disapproved of the fact that Gru's warmer side was starting to reveal itself and sent the girls back to the orphanage. Though Gru didn't attempt to stop Miss Hattie from taking them he was clearly upset about them leaving and later said that giving them up was the worst mistake he'd ever made. He also did his best to get to their dance performance after stealing the moon and was upset when he discovered he was too late. Gru also had a tendency to say "lightbulb" whenever he had an idea. He spoke in an unusual accent (probably east European) which was described as 'a mix of Ricardo Montalban and Bela Lugosi'. When asked about his accent by Ellen DeGeneres he said he was from Albuquerque, New Mexico and asked Ellen not to push this topic any further.
Appearance and Abilities Gru is a tall, bald man with blue eyes; a long nose and broad, powerful physique; (unlike Vector) and dress in a light grey sweater underneath a black collared coat along with a striped scarf, black trousers, and shoes. He is very strong and athletic, being capable of dodging and leaping off several heat-seeking missiles, backhanding Vector's shark with a single punch (without even looking at it), and smashing his fist into Vector's monitor, easily cracking the screen without doing any damage to his hand.
Apart from his remarkable agility and strength, Gru is also considerably intelligent. For example, as a child he built a real rocket. However since becoming a supervillain he seems to let Dr Nefario handle most of the mechanical work though he was seen helping Nefario from time to time. Gru was also capable of forming clever plans such as his plan to steal the shrink ray from Vector. He also has demonstrated an amazing ability to adapt and improvise effectively on the fly when the a plan takes some unexpected twists and turns.
During his interview with Miss Hattie when he first adopted the girls, his date of birth is listed as "09.28.1960". Based on the real-world release dates of both movies, this would put his age at the early 50s as of Despicable Me 2.
Gru is also a good dancer as he always enjoys dances through crowds of minions or real people. On The Ellen DeGeneres Show he showed he could do many kinds of dances but Ellen was unable to guess the last one before time ran out (Irish Jig).
Achievements
- Drawing a picture of himself landing on the moon
- Making a macaroni prototype of the rocket
- Making a full-sized, fully-working rocket, based on the model and macaroni prototype
- Villiain of the Year (seen on a newspaper)
- Stealing the Times Square Jumbotron
- Stealing the Statue of Liberty (the small one from Las Vegas)
- Stealing the Eiffel Tower (also from Las Vegas)
- Stealing the Shrink Ray from a secret East Asian (Appears to be north korean) facility
- Adopting three girls from Ms. Hattie's Home for Girls
- Stealing the Shrink Ray (back from Vector)
- Making a rocket (with the help of the Minions and Dr. Nefario)
- Stealing the moon (momentarily)
- Saving Margo, Edith, and Agnes from Vector
- Unintentionally returning the moon
- Becoming the world's best hero (unintentionally, of course)
- Wanting to harm Vector for kidnapping his adoptive girls
- Becoming a caring father
- Appearing in real life on the Ellen DeGeneres show
- Scaring Ellen's DJ, Tony Okungbowa.