The Nerd-Next-Door Voted Most Likely to Succeed

By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 5, 2008

Michael Cera is the best actor under 30, according to Entertainment Weekly.

The New York Times has deemed him "excellent."

He's the "funniest actor alive," according to the Pioneer Press of St. Paul, Minn.

And according to the discerning chatters of CosmoGirl.com, the skinny kid whose quirky cadence stole the show in "Superbad," "Juno" and "Arrested Development" is " hilarious . . . so crushable!"

Seems like just about everything a backpack-carrying 20-year-old in a hoodie could want. And yet . . .

"[Acting] is kind of changing for me from what I've known it to be my whole life," he says. "It's kind of becoming something that is not necessarily all positive."

He adds: "I don't think this is why people become actors."

"This" meaning answering questions about his life and career from a faceless stranger on the other side of the country.

As fame has pushed him into the spotlight, Cera has slowly revealed himself as a low-key actor who embraces being on set more than all the celeb trappings, the attention and the necessary phone interviews. Such as this one from Dallas last week on Day 3 of his week-long promotional tour for the indie rock-fueled rom com "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist," which opened Friday.

The boy who wanted to be Bill Murray when he grew up is now questioning that path.

"It's weird," he continues, "when you go through some kind of widely successful film, and overnight your life has kind of changed."

The Ontario native started acting when he was 9, and a couple of commercials led to a Canadian television show; at 15 he was cast as George-Michael Bluth, the awkward teen with an inappropriate cousin-crush on "Arrested Development." A couple weeks after the show ended, Cera was plucked to play the straight man in Judd Apatow's "Superbad." Then came "Juno," tiny track shorts and a sweet song on the front steps with Ellen Page. Suddenly Cera is the perfect nerd-next-door -- the dork-about-to-win-the-girl. Now there's "Nick and Norah," an all-night sprint through New York City in which Cera's newly dumped Nick finds animosity, then affection, in Kat Dennings's Norah.

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."