  Jay Baruchel was jacked up about his role in the comic-book extravaganza Justice League. Sadly, the movie has been shelved. |
With super friends like Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow and Ben Stiller, who needs the Justice League?
Still, it's hard to mistake the disappointment -- or enthusiasm -- in Jay Baruchel's voice when he discusses the mega-budgeted comic-book extravaganza that almost was.
"I really, really hope it happens. It was the coolest thing in the world for a nerd like me," says the 26-year-old Montrealer, best recognized from last year's Knocked Up, Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby and the Apatow-produced TV series Undeclared. "It was going to be awesome."
And frankly we're probably going to have to take his word on that. Baruchel -- who won't reveal what role he'd signed for, although rumours had him pegged as one of the villains -- was in Australia last December rehearsing when Warner Bros. unceremoniously banished the production to a purgatorial phantom zone. Among probable reasons why? The toxic buzz the League movie -- despite being helmed by The Road Warrior's legendary George Miller -- was generating online. With neither big-screen Batman Christian Bale nor Superman Brandon Routh on-board, fanboys balked at the decision to recast young unknowns as those spandex-clad icons. "Everyone on the Internet was hating our movie," Baruchel says. "But you know us cast members were psyched that everybody was gunning for us because it would have only meant people would have been blown away that much more. We knew the bulk of the detractors would have been silenced."
Not that Baruchel isn't staying busy while he awaits final word on League's fate.
Now playing in select Canadian cities is Just Buried, a made-in-Halifax comedy about a small-town loser who inherits a funeral home. And next month, he will be seen as part of the all-star ensemble of Tropic Thunder, about a group of prima donna actors who unwittingly run afoul of drug runners while shooting a Vietnam war epic in the jungle. The movie stars Stiller (who also directed), Robert Downey Jr. and Nick Nolte. Next up, Baruchel, who just wrapped the romantic comedy She's Out of My League, will team with Rogen -- who he calls "one of my best friends in the whole world" -- for Jay and Seth versus The Apocalypse. "For better or for worse, what the movie is about is implied in the title. We're playing ourselves during the end of the world."
For all his success in Hollywood, Baruchel, who was born in Ottawa, continues to call Montreal -- not Los Angeles -- home.
"As cliche as it sounds, I just like it here better. And there is the added bonus that living here puts everything in perspective. It's very easy to get tunnel vision in Los Angeles, where you're surrounded 24-7 by the industry. ... I'm just a movie nerd who has loved movies since I was a nine and watched Ferris Bueller on VHS. You know, in high school there were some pretty dire times and movies were my escape. So it's the best of both worlds to be spending time in my favourite country in the world while making movies. ... If I had my druthers, I'd shoot here all the time."
He just wishes Canadian audiences felt as similarly patriotic about their film-going choices. Fact is, for most Canucks -- such as Vancouver's Rogen -- you have to enjoy fame south of the border before you're fully embraced here.
Says Baruchel optimistically, " I can't wait for the day when kids are equally psyched to see a movie -- whether it's American or Canadian."
kevin.williamson@sunmedia.ca
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