The Nerd-Next-Door Voted Most Likely to Succeed

So it must feel surreal -- all of this success coming so quickly.

"Um, not really, no. It doesn't really feel like that," he says. "Just 'cause I've been acting for a long time, and auditioning and working for a long time. So I mean, it just feels like the same."

What's your life like now? Where do you spend your time?

"It just totally depends on what's going on. For most of this year I was in Louisiana, working."

What was going on in Louisiana?

"I was working."

On?

"A movie."

Can you tell us anything more about it?

"Yeah. It's just a movie. Called 'Year One.' It's gonna come out next year."

"Year One" is another Apatow-produced flick, this one set in biblical times and co-starring Jack Black. It's a comedy, of course, Cera's mainstay.

Ever consider another genre?

"I never think that far ahead," he says.

So there's no big career strategy?

"No, no. I'm just doing what I've always done. I'm just a working actor. I'll see what comes along."

Okay. So what does Cera want from this business?

"Being on set is so much fun, that's why I've always done it," he says, finally slipping into that prattling rhythm so familiar from his characters on-screen. "You work with fun people, and it's very intimate. You work with a crew, and you see the same people every day. And then when it's released it's kind of a totally different thing. But I love the work of it."

The work keeps coming. Next year he stars in the boy-pursues-dreamgirl movie "Youth in Revolt," and he's been cast in the action romance "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," adapted from the graphic novel.

"I've been acting since I was 9," he continues, "just playing these parts -- and people didn't care about what I did in my spare time or anything. All of a sudden it's personal, and I don't see what I have to do with it."