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Although Young's handsome face has been adorning teen magazines south of the border for two years, he's far from being The Famous anybody in Canada yet.
Which suits the lead of The Famous Jett Jackson just fine.
"That's great man, I like it. One of the pluses for me about filming in Canada is that I'm just another guy," the 16-year-old New Yorker said during a break from chemistry tutoring on the Jett set a few days ago.
"I can go on a date, you know what I mean? I have a curfew. I can go to the mall. I can do basically what any normal 16-year-old can do. Especially because I'm in Canada. It's not like I can go somewhere and be (saying), 'Have you seen my show and let me in.' 'No, no I haven't seen your show. Get away from the door.' "
Even in the U.S., he protested playfully, "I'm not like a Leonardo DiCaprio or anything. I'm just a small premium cable star."
A cable star on a show that's something of a phenomenon, though. In the U.S., where Jett has aired on The Disney Channel for two seasons, it's the channel's highest-rated non-animated series. Disney currently airs it three nights a week, will increase that to daily play in June, and plans a movie-length version.
All of the 39 episodes already done and the 26 more now under way were made here by Toronto's Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. Finally this fall, Canadian kids will get to see what they've done when Jett premieres on Family channel.
The show, which also features Lindy Booth, has the demographics and the clout to attract guest stars like Britney Spears, which it did last year. Usher plays a top skateboarder/computer hacker in the third season's opening episode.
So the day's shooting was at Shred City, a Nicholas St. indoor skateboard park where the bathrooms are labelled "Chix" and "Dudes" and the camera needed to shoot around profanity-laden graffiti.
The 21-year-old Usher said he watches Jett with his 15-year-old brother and knows it attracts the same young audience as his music.
"I want to get back to my fans, as far as my music," said Usher, whose third album will be out in September.
"But in between, this is a good way to keep 'em warm. Keep the engine running."
TLC's Rozanda "Chilli" Thomas is expected to be here shooting a Jett episode this summer.
In the show, teenager Jett moves to Hollywood and becomes the star of a Junior James Bond-ish adventure series called Silverstone. Tired of the bright lights and of missing friends and family, he convinces the production to relocate to his rural North Carolina hometown.
The first season focused on Jett's family life, downplaying Silverstone, the show-within-the-show. And then? And then Young saw The Matrix, which was to win four Oscars for its technical quality.
"It really blew me away with what they were able to do with the images," said Young, who took Jett executive producer Shawn Levy back to watch it with him.
"Shawn, he's good in that he asks my opinion on a lot of things, especially when it comes to, like, staying in contact with the youth and what's cool and what's not," Young said.
Levy, a boyish 30-year-old from Montreal, agreed on the coolness of Matrix's martial arts and effects, and since then, Jett has given the impressively slick Silverstone segments equal play.
"So it's like, if you like that first season, you're going to love the second and third," Lee vouched of the change.
"And if you don't like that first season, well you've got no taste. No, no. If you don't like the first season then stick around because we've got even more things that will catch your attention."