Jay Baruchel loves his home and native land.
"I have a maple leaf tattooed over my heart -- I really do," says the actor, 26.
"Whenever I get a chance to do a movie in Canada, I jump at it. And I loved the script for Real Time, too," he says of his new movie, which was shot in Hamilton. "My favourite stuff is tragically dramatic and broadly comic in the same beat, and Real Time is nothing if not that."
Real Time stars Baruchel as a punk with huge gambling debts and Randy Quaid as the hoodlum assigned to kill him for those debts. The movie is a gritty character study about luck and second chances; it opens today.
Baruchel has been an actor since he was 12. He was in such TV shows as Popular Mechanics For Kids and Are You Afraid of the Dark? and he had a small role in Almost Famous, but around the age of 17, he hit an awkward, adolescent patch, and didn't work much for a few years. All that changed when he was cast in the Judd Apatow TV show, Undeclared.
He's since had substantial roles in such films as Million Dollar Baby, Knocked Up, Tropic Thunder and Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, but Baruchel still calls Montreal home -- and that's where he's currently filming The Trotsky.
"The greatest thing is that I'm actually getting to shoot there, because it's the only place in the world I pay rent and pay taxes, and I usually have to leave to earn a living. I haven't worked in Montreal in 10 years, so the fact I get to shoot a movie I love and at the end of the day go home, see my roommates, pet my cat and sleep in my bed is incredible."
Actors move around a lot, says Baruchel.
"I spent five months in Hawaii last year, and then two months in Pittsburgh. I Iiken myself to a bank robber or a spy," he jokes. "I have my home base, and when I'm there I do nothing but vegetate and plan my next heist. And then go off and work my ass off on that for pockets of concentrated craziness. It doesn't suck. It definitely beats a poke in the face."
In Montreal, Baruchel is highly visible. It's not just the distinguishing hair. "No matter what I do, no matter how many weeks Tropic Thunder is No. 1 at the box office, I'm still the kid from Popular Mechanics or from a Chevrolet commercial that was exclusive to the Quebec market and that they just aired the f--- out of!" He laughs. "Can't tell you how many times, when I was a teenager, I heard people speeding down the street yelling, 'Hey! It's the Chevrolet guy! But I'm not complaining."
Indeed he isn't. Baruchel is working like mad and loving it, having just finished a romantic comedy called She's Out Of My League, which should open in February. And he'll do a movie with Seth Rogen this summer: The much talked-about Jay And Seth Versus The Apocalypse. He says, "I've known Seth since I was 18. I've lived with him for huge pockets of time. He's even cut my hair a few times. He's one of my best friends in the whole world. I love him. It's awesome."
Baruchel appeared in a recent Vanity Fair feature called Hollywood's Next Wave, though he just looks embarrassed when we ask about that experience.
"I've been at this for 14 years," he says, "and in that time I've had valleys and peaks and ebbed and flowed so many times, that, well -- I've not been in Vanity Fair before, but I've had my picture taken plenty of times. I have no control over any of that stuff. The only thing I can control is to try my best to do stuff that I would go see as a movie fan, and try to do the best work I can. The rest is all wallpaper."
What's kept his feet on the ground? Was it starting as a child that's kept him from getting his head turned by fame?
"I live a block away from my mother," Baruchel says. "That forever lessons the chances of getting my head turned."
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